Interpretation means the art of knowing the real sense of an enactment by
giving its natural and ordinary meaning to the words of the enactment. It is the
method of evaluating the true value of the terms used in a statute. It is not
assumed that the Court will view it arbitrarily and, thus, these concepts have
evolved from the continuous exercise by the courts. It must be applied to actual
circumstances once the law has been established. In every situation, it is
impossible for Parliament to spell out how a statute should apply.
Accordingly,
it is obligatory for the judiciary to expound the framework as provided by the
Parliament & to give its words an effect. This approach is interpreted as
statutory interpretation. It is necessary to understand the different factors
that can generate confusion about legislative significance before contemplating
the way that judges view legislation.
Such variables include the types of
drafting mistakes, unforeseen developments, and political ambiguity. In addition
to these, there can also be uncertainty about the interpretation of a statute
where: words have a peculiar meaning, the meaning of a chosen word has
transformed over a course of time, or the meaning of a particular word springs
from the context in which that word is used. The three standard approaches to
legislative interpretation will now be considered.
The Literal Rule requires the
judge to allow their ordinary and natural significance to the words of the
statute, whether or not the interpretation's effect is to provide an unjust or
undesirable result. The Golden Rule is taken into account in a furtherance of
the Literal Rule. It comes into operation where the execution of the Literal
Rule will result in absurdity. There may be one of every two types of the Golden
Law. The third rule is that the mischief rule. It is called the most flexible
rule and was first used in the case of Heydon.
Introduction
Legislature makes the rule and court interprets it at the time of providing
justice. Interpretation is the primary function of a court. Whenever there is a
dispute before the court and there is an ambiguity about the real meaning of the
law, the law is interpreted by the court. Interpretation means providing the
words or phrases used in the law with the best single meaning. The starting
point for interpretation is the statute. The important basis for interpretation
is each and every part expressed in the statute.
The court has to read the
statute as a whole to interpret it. The court is not supposed to interpret
arbitrarily. These are listed as general principles, which are literal meaning,
golden rule, and mischief rule. There are internal and external aids to
correctly interpret what is in accordance with the intention of lawmakers at the
time of law making. Rules of interpretation render solid foundation for the
super framework of judicial reasoning.
In different decisions, the presumption
of statutory constitutionality is critically observed, analysed and
applied. Considering the legislative explosion and the responsiveness on the
part of judiciary in India, there is no necessity for any specific explanation
for challenges relating to interpretation. An authoritative work rightly
reiterates that:
one point should be uncontroversial: interpretation is relative to the
interpretation of the document.
Therefore, the court's divergent
interpretation is some time natural. However, in the Hon'Ble, Mr. Justice R.A.
Mehta (Retd)'s case, the Supreme Court began to reiterate the warning in
seven-judge bench judgement fifty years back. It extracted from the case of
Keshav Mills Co. wherein the Court given its verdict that:
When this Court
adjudicates on questions of law, its judgments are binding upon all courts
within the territory of India pursuant to Article 141, and must therefore be
consistent within the territory of India and the purpose of this Court was to
develop and establish a component of uniformity and objectivity in the
interpretation of statutes within the country.
It has been correctly said that 'words are not passive agents, which at all
times and in all contexts mean the same thing and have the same meaning.
Interpreting the Statutes
The word
statutory interpretation applies to the conduct of judiciary in
attempting to recognise and justifying the meaning of a legislative piece. On
the basis of interpretation, several cases go to appeal.
Firstly, legislation
must be drafted in extensive and plain phraseology and essentially deal with
both current and subsequent circumstances. Sometimes, a legislation which was
formulated to cure an specific problem would ultimately be extended to varying
circumstances. Laws are framed by draughtsmen, and the capacity of a draughtsman
to foresee the subsequent events is finite. He may not anticipate any potential
for the future or omit a viable misinterpretation of the legislation's initial
intents.
Another challenge is a particular piece of legislation also attempts to
deal with issues that include various and competing interests. There are several
words with more than one meaning in both legal and general English. With this
being the case, many ambiguities can be found in even the best written
legislation. This is not the fault on the part of the draughtsman, but a result
of the fact that public would inevitably find different meanings in the language
used when they look at a text from different points of view.
Three fundamental
principles of statutory interpretation are usually followed by judges in India,
and analogous rules are also implemented in various other jurisdictions under
the common law. The rules are named as golden, literal, and mischief. While
judiciary is not specifically provided with the necessity to use rules of this
sort while interpreting a statute, one of these three methods is normally
followed, and the method of interpretation taken by any specific judge is always
a manifestation of the philosophy that such a judge follows.
Need for Interpretation:
There are certain reasons why statutory interpretation is necessary and these
are the following reasons: Inconsistency, unclear and ambiguous language can
arise from the ambiguity of the laws regarding the essence of the subject,
various draughtsmen and the combination of legal and technical language. Future
occurrence expectation leads to the use of indeterminate words. The unlikely job
of predicting any possible scenario often contributes to the indeterminate
language use.
Therefore, because of the holes in laws, judges have to interpret
statutes. Words such as rational are examples of indeterminate vocabulary. In
this case , the courts are responsible for deciding what the word
fair
constitutes. Words may have several meanings and definitions. The description
and sense of the language most advantageous to their individual needs will be
used by each party in court. The most accurate use of the vocabulary employed is
up to the courts to determine.
Rules of Interpretation
Literal Rule of Interpretation:
The judge considers, under this provision, what
the law actually means, rather than what it might be inferred. In order to carry
out this operation, the judge may apply a literal sense to the terms used in
that law, that is, their plain meaning in ordinary and everyday parlance,
despite the intention of this is to achieve what would be perceived as an unfair
or undesirable outcome otherwise.
The literal rule says that in ordinary and
normal sense of the words used, Parliament's purpose is best sought. The
Parliament ought to be treated as the representative democratic component of the
state to try to affect precisely what is stated there in the rules. If judges
are being permitted to render the terms of parliamentary law an apparent or
non-literal sense, therefore the will of Parliament, and thus the people, is
opposed.
The application of the literal rule is illustrated for the first time in
the Fisher's case of 1960. The Offensive Weapons Prohibition Act 1959 declared
it an offence to smuggle deadly weapons, including flick knives. In the arcade
at Broadmead, James Bell, a Bristol shopkeeper, exhibited a similar pistol in
his shop window. The Court of Division declared that he'd not be prosecuted
because the accused had not displayed the knives for sale, by utilizing a
literal and strict dense of interpretation. In the contract law, this is not
legally an offer for sale to put something in a shop window; rather this is
clearly an invitation to offer.
An
invitation to offer is an invitation to
make deals to others, as by showing items in a shop window. When he or she pays
money for a commodity on sale, it is the buyer who makes a bid to the store. The
court confirmed that the owner of the shop had not instituted an offer to sell
as per the literal sense of the offer, and was thus not liable for the
commission of such crime. The Parliament later revised the statute to make its
stance more apparent that it was an offence to exhibit a flick knife in a shop
window.
There are both benefits and downsides to the literal law. It
appreciates parliamentary sovereignty constitutionally and the unfettered power
of Parliament to make whatever laws it may like, how ludicrous they might appear
nonetheless. It also stimulates accuracy in drafting and guarantees that the law
can be decided by someone who can read English, which fosters reliability and
mitigates litigation. However, many drawbacks may also be detected. It fades to
comprehend that the language of English itself is very technical and that in
various context, words can have varying interpretations.
Usage of such law can
frequently lead to unwarranted idiocy and loopholes that a shrewd litigant can
manipulate. Without giving due emphasis to their interpretation in a broader
sense, judges have leaned towards over emphasising the literal meaning of
statutory provisions. Emphasizing the literal sense of terms presupposes an
unachievable perfection in drafting. Finally, it neglects language 's
weaknesses.
Golden Rule of Interpretation:
This rule is a literal change in law. It implies
that if an incongruity is created by the literal rule, then the judiciary should
infer the another meaning of the words to prevent the unwanted outcome. In
Grey
v Pearson, the rule was closely described by Lord Wensleydale, who stated:
It is important to stick to the grammatical and ordinary meaning of the terms
unless that leads to any absurdity or some repugnance or inconsistency with the
rest of the language, under which case the grammatical and ordinary meaning of
the terms may be changed under order to prevent absurdity and inconsistency, but
no further.
In
Adler v George case, the method was used so as to prevent an
incongruence outcome. It was an offence under sec. 3 of the Official Secrets Act
1920 to impede HM Powers in the vicinity of a forbidden location. In fact, while
prohibiting some of the powers inside such a prohibited place, Mr Frank Adler
was arrested. He contended that, although he was actually in an obstructed spot,
he was not in the vicinity of a restricted area. To enlarge the literal language
of the law to include the action done by the accused, the court applied the
golden rule.
It would have created absurdity if the literal approach had been
applied, as someone objecting near the base would be committing an offence while
someone expressing his objection while being inside it would not.
Re Sigsworth
(1935) was dealing with a situation where his mother had been slaughtered by a
sibling. The mother had not stated her will and her estate would be given or to
say succeeded by her next person in dynasty, namely her son, under the
Administration of Justice Act 1925. In the words of the Act, there was no doubt,
but the court was not fashioned to let his crime favour the son who had
slaughtered his mother. It was decided that the literal approach did not
applicable and held that the golden method should be applied instead to keep the
son from being repugnant.
No simple means are given by the golden rule to test the presence or degree of
an absurdity. It appears to entrusted on each particular case's outcome.
Although the golden approach has the benefit of preventing ridiculousness, there
is therefore the downside that there is no test to assess what an absurdity is.
The golden rule is that their ordinary sense must be prima facie given to the
words of a statute. Words of normal and ordinary importance.
Mischief Rule of Interpretation: This third rule provides more power to a judge
than either the golden or the literal rule. In order to figure out what loophole
or misfortune the statute was meant to fill, this rule allows the court to
consider at what the law was before the statute was enacted. To ensure that the
void is filled, the court is then forced to interpret the law in such a
approach. The rule is found in
Heydon's Case (1584), where it was said that
four points must be observed for the true reading of a statute:
- Before the making of the Act, what was common law.
- What was the absurdity and flaw that the common law did not advance for?
- What a solution Parliament has rectified and named to cure the
Commonwealth disease.
- The real justification for the solution; and then the office of the
Judges is to render such formulation as the mischief would be suppressed and
will be advanced.
This rule provides the court grounds for going beyond the literal language of
the law in order to contemplate the issue that was aimed at resolving the
specific statute. It is obviously the most versatile interpretation rule at one
point, but it is restricted to using previous common law to decide what mischief
was meant to resolve the act in question. The case itself entailed a dispute
over legislation passed in 1540 under Henry VIII and a claim against Heydon for
interference into some lands in Devon County.
In Corkery's case (1951), an instance of the use of the application of mischief
rule is found. The accused was sentenced to imprisonment for a month in 1951 for
being in alcoholic state in public domain while on a bicycle. Around 2.45 p.m.
The defendant was intoxicated and was riding his pedal bicycle down Ilfracombe
's Broad Lane.
Under section 12 of the Licensing Act 1872, he was consequently
charged with being intoxicated in possession of a carriage. No real reference to
bicycles was made by the 1872 Act. To resolve the case, the court elected to use
the mischief rule. The object of the act was to stop individuals from taking
recourse of any mode of transportation while in a state of intoxication in a
regular or to say public sphere. Clearly, the bicycle could be interpreted as a
type of transport and the user was therefore charged correctly.
Analysis Of Golden Rule and Mischief Rule: For the administration of justice,
the interpretation of laws is very vital. These are the devices used by judges
to read the context of the provisions of the law in order to justify their
decisions. Statutory interpretation is a very critical problem that is not made
simple because of different factors. One of them is that words do not typically
have meanings that are static. Over time, the use of certain words varies. This
then makes the reading of laws not as easy as one might imagine.
Beck vs Smith There may also be instances in which the direct
interpretation of words could lead to absurdity. Or there may also be cases in
which the purpose of the legislature in the interpretation of statutes is not
well articulated. In the event that it was provided that the literal
interpretation of a statute could be used only to the degree that it would not
create irony or contradict the intent of the legislature, the golden rule was
formulated. If the statute's literal reading was to create absurdity, then the
legislature's purpose should be applied.
A rule of statutory interpretation that seeks to assess the intention of the
legislator is the mischief rule. Originating from a case in the United Kingdom
in the 16th century (Heydon 's case), its main purpose is to ascertain
the mischief and defect that the law in question has set out to fix, and what
decision will effectively enforce this fix.
Conclusion
Statutory interpretation is the court's primary role. The statute is passed by
the Legislature and is in the possession of the court to interpret it if there
is a conflict. As it reflects the will of the legislature in the form of a law.
The starting point for interpretation is the law.
In accordance with the intention of the law maker at the time of lawmaking, the
Court must give sense to the statute. The courts are not supposed to interpret
arbitrary laws. They must obey those principles, such as the literal meaning,
the golden rule and the rule of mischief. Harmonious laws must also be followed
and the law as a whole must be read when reading the law.
The oldest rule of interpretation that evolved in the case of Heydon in 1584 is
the Mischief rule. The object of the rule of mischief is to remove the law
defect and advance the remedy provided for. In the event of misunderstanding and
defect in law, four aspects must be considered by the court, this is what the
law was before current law, what is a defect that is not supposed to be in the
law, for what intent the law offers a remedy and what is the true justification
for a remedy.
The Legislature's purpose is to collect mainly from the words used in the
legislation, while paying attention to what has been said as well as what has
not been said. Literal meaning needs to be applied because the words used are
not vague, which is the golden rule of interpretation. The
Golden rule is
simply a literal rule change.
In the creation of a statute, it is a very useful
rule to stick to the ordinary sense of the words used and to the grammatical
construction to be collected from the statute itself, unless it is at variance
with the purpose of the legislature, in which case the language may be varied or
modified, so as to prevent such inconvenience, but no further.
In order to overcome uncertainty in the statutory language in favour of the
interpretation that will better accomplish the purpose of the legislature
revealed by the statute as a whole, the golden rule is most frequently
applied. As can be seen from the event, various judges can apply the rule of
mischief differently. It is primarily about the discretion and comprehension of
the person applying it. However, in comparison to the golden or literal rules,
it serves as a much more satisfactory way of interpreting.
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