Legislative history

Legislative history includes any of various materials generated in the course of creating legislation, such as committee reports, analysis by legislative counsel, committee hearings, floor debates, and histories of actions taken. Legislative history is used for discovering sources of information about a legislature's intent in enacting a law, although jurists disagree widely about the extent (if any) to which a statute's legislative history has bearing on the meaning of its text.

Swedish courts frequently avail themselves of the legislative history (Swedish: förarbeten, literally "travaux préparatoires") in interpreting the law. Valid documents of legislative history are often taken to be official government reports, the bills (Swedish: proposition) presented by the Government before the Riksdag, statements made by the responsible minister at the Government session where the bill was adopted (Swedish: regeringssammanträde), the report on the bill by the relevant Riksdag committee (Swedish: utskottsbetänkande), and statements made by the responsible minister during the debate in the Riksdag.

Prior to 1993, looking into the Parliamentary records to aid interpretation would have been perceived as a breach of Parliamentary privilege; however the House of Lords ruled in Pepper v Hart [1993] AC 593 that it could do so in specific circumstances.

Whether and to what extent courts should use legislative history when deciding cases is disputed in the United States. Textualists reject any use of legislative history, while intentionalists and purposivists look to legislative history to determine the legislative intent or the goals of the law, respectively. Many legal scholars believe consulting legislative history is acceptable only when the text of the law is ambiguous.

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