Where the court is to take an action, rules of court should prefer “must” to “will”, according to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.
The Rules committee has therefore made a new practice direction. In any new rules of court, or in any changes to a rule, made on or after 1 October 2014, “the Rules will generally provide that the court “must” do the action, rather than “will””, to indicate obligation. “Will”, in these new provisions, is likely to indicate the court’s future intention to do something it is not necessarily obliged to do. (That might also be the meaning of these words in earlier versions of the rules.)
English rules of court must be simple, and simply expressed. How simple is a guide to interpretation that depends on knowing the date the rule was last changed?
Practice Direction 2D: References in the rules to actions done by the court, effective 1 October 2014
