Statutory Interpretation - Golden Rule
GOLDEN RULE OF STATUTORY INTERPRETATION
INTRODUCTION
Interpretation is the method by which the true sense or the meaning of the word is understood[1]. Maxwell defines STATUE as the “will of legislature”[2] and the function of a court is to interpret that document according to the intent of them that made it.[3] Thus in interpretation Judges have to repeatedly declare the intentions of the Parliament. The term statutory interpretation refers to the action of a court in trying to understand and explaining the meaning of a piece of legislation. Many cases go to courts on a point of interpretation. Judges in England generally apply three basic rules of statutory interpretation, and similar rules are also used in other common law jurisdictions. These are the literal rule, the golden rule and the mischief rule[4].
According to Salmond: The primary and foremost task of a court in interpreting a statute is to ascertain the intention of the legislature, actual or imputed. The words of the statute are to be construed so as to ascertain the mind of the legislature from the natural and grammatical meaning of the words which it has used i.e. ‘The essence of the Law’[5].
WHAT IS GOLDEN RULE
Now the question arises what is the golden rule of interpretation? The golden rule is that- the words of a statute must prima facie be given their ordinary meaning. It is yet another rule of construction that when the words of the statute are not clear, plain enough and are unambiguous, then the courts are bound to give effect to that meaning to the words themselves with the best-declared intention of the law-maker[6]. Golden Rule is also known as ‘Lord Wensleydale’s Golden Rule’ after Grey v. Pearson (1857) case. In Grey v. Pearson, Lord Wensleydale said: “The literal rule should be used first, but if it results in absurdity, the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified, so as to avoid absurdity and inconsistency, but no further”[7].
In Dental Council of India and Anr. v. Hari Prakash and Ors. , it was held: "The intention of the Legislature is primarily to be gathered from the language used in the statute, thus paying attention to what has been said as also to what has not been said. When the words used are not ambiguous, literal meaning has to be applied, which is the golden rule of interpretation."
In Navinchandra Mafatlal v. CIT, Bombay[8], it was observed by Hon'ble Supreme Court that:
"The golden rule of interpretation is that words should be read in their ordinary, natural and grammatical meaning subject to the rider that in construing words in a Constitution conferring legislative power the most liberal construction should be put upon the words so that they may have effect in their widest amplitude."
One example of the application of the golden rule is the case of R v. Allen – Defendant is charged with bigamy, an offense prohibited in Offences against Persons Act 1861 which reads “whoever is married, marries another commits bigamy.” The court held that the word “marries” need not mean a contract of marriage as it was impossible for a person who is already married to enter into another valid contract of marriage. Hence, the court interpreted it as “going through marriage ceremony”.
The so-called 'golden rule' is really a modification of the literal rule. It was stated in this way by Parke B.: 'It is a very useful rule, in the construction of a statute, to adhere to the ordinary meaning of the words used, and to the grammatical construction, unless that is at variance with the intention of the legislature, to be collected from the statute itself, or leads to any manifest absurdity or repugnance, in which case the language may be varied or modified, so as to avoid such inconvenience, but no further.'. 'If', said Brett L.J., 'the inconvenience is not only great, but what I may call an absurd inconvenience, by reading an enactment in its ordinary sense, whereas if you read it in a manner in which it is capable, though not its ordinary sense, there would not be any inconvenience at all, there would be reason why you should not read it according to its ordinary grammatical meaning'.[9]
Jervis CJ, also described it as the ‘golden rule’ in Matteson v. Hart[10]: We must, therefore, in this case, have recourse to what is called the golden rule of construction, as applied to Acts of Parliament, viz to give to the words used by the Legislature their plain and natural meaning, unless it is manifest, from the general scope and intention of the statute, injustice and absurdity would result from so construing them.
Thus, if the meaning of the words is at variance with the intention of the legislature to be collected from the statute itself and leads to some absurdity or repugnance, then the language may be varied or modified so as to avoid such inconvenience, absurdity or repugnance and no further. The modern positive approach is to have a purposeful construction, which is to effectuate the object and purpose of the Act.[11] In other words ambiguity, inconsistency, incompleteness in literal interpretation leads modification of language so as to avoid such inconvenience. When in construing a word literally, there exist variance with the intention of the legislature to be gathered from the subject or context of the statute, the language may be varied or modified in such a case, but no further. The ambiguity here means double meaning, a word’s expression capable of more than one meaning. A word is inconsistent when it is incompatible with other words or gives separate meaning when read with other parts of the statute. The word ‘absurdity’ also means ‘repugnance': Repugnancy appears when there is a direct conflict or inconsistencies like one provision says, “do” and other says, “don’t.” A situation may be reached where it is impossible to obey the one without disobeying the other.[12]
EXCEPTION TO GOLDEN RULE
In Maunsell v. Olins[13], Lord Simon formulated the exception to the "golden rule" required by technical words, or words of art, as follows:
"(The 'golden rule') is sometimes put. (sic) that in statutes dealing with ordinary people, in their everyday lives, the language is presumed to be used in its primary ordinary sense unless this stultified the purpose of the statute or otherwise produces some injustice, absurdity, anomaly or contradiction in which case some secondary ordinary sense may be preferred so as to obviate the injustice, absurdity, anomaly or contradiction, or fulfil the purpose of the statute ; while in statutes dealing with technical matters, words which are capable of both bearing the ordinary meaning and being terms of art in the technical matter of the legislation will presumptively bear their primary meaning as such terms of art (or, if they must necessarily be modified, some secondary meaning as terms of art."
INTERPRETATION OF GOLDEN RULE
Crawford has discussed the various ways by which the meaning of statutes is to be ascertained[14]. He writes:
‘The first source from which the legislative intent is to be sought is the words of the statute. Then an examination should be made of the context and the subject matter and purpose of the enactment. After the exhaustion of all intrinsic aids, if the legislative intent is still obscure, it is proper for the court to consult the several extrinsic matters for further assistance. And during the consideration of the- various sources of assistance, further help may, of course, be found on the use of the numerous rules of construction’.
Whereas Austin divided the interpretative process into three sub-processes:
- Finding the rule;
- Finding the intention of the legislature; and
- Extending or restricting the statute so discovered to cover cases which should be covered.[15]
APPLICATION OF GOLDEN RULE
Maxwell says[16] that the application of Golden Rule of Construction, and its limits, can be seen in the area devoted to construction with reference to the consequences, and construction to avoid inconvenience and injustice and to prevent evasion. He illustrated the application of the rule in various cases relating to criminal, civil, labour, revenue taxation and administration branches of law. In Free Lanka Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Ranasinghe. (1964) AC 541 a Statute made it felony ‘to break from prison”. Held it would not apply to a prisoner who escaped while the prison was on fire. Since his act was, not to recover liberty, but to save his life. Similarly, a statute which made ‘an act’ criminal in unqualified terms was understood as not applying where the act done was excusable or justifiable on grounds generally recognized by law.
In Luke v. R.R.C[17], Lord Reid said: “An intention to produce unreasonable result is not to be imputed a statute if there is some other construction available. Where to apply words literally would defeat the “obvious intention of the legislation and produce a wholly unreasonable result” we must do some violence to the words and so achieve that obvious intention and produce a rational construction. Though our standard of drafting is such that it rarely emerges, but a problem may arise where more than one meaning arc available through the words of the statute, that meaning should be chosen which is reasonable and rational.” In R. v. London Justices[18], section 105 of the Highways Act, 1835 gave an appeal to ‘any person’ who thought himself aggrieved by any order, conviction, judgment or determination of a justice under the Act. This was held not to apply to ‘an informant who complained of an acquittal’ on a charge of obstructing highway, for if it did, the person acquitted would be liable to be twice vexed for the same offense.
DIFFICULTIES IN THE APPLICATION OF GOLDEN RULE
In Lord Moulton in Vacher & Sons v. London Society of Compositor[19] had explained the reasons for adopting caution before application of the golden rule of construction in these words: “There is a danger that it may generate into a mere judicial criticism of the propriety of the Acts of the legislature. We have to interpret statutes according to the language used therein, and though occasionally the respective consequences of two rival interpretations may guide us in our choice in between them, it can only be where, taking the Act as a whole and viewing it in connection with the existing state of law at the time of the passing of the Act, we can satisfy ourselves that the words cannot have been used in the sense the argument points. “It may sometimes happen that laws made for the benefit of the public at large may come in conflict of some individual interest or take away his legal right and cause injustice to him. That is to say, like public policy, absurdity, uncertainty or repugnance, are very unruly horses. In State Bank of India v. Shri N. Sundara Money[20] the Supreme Court said that “it is the duty of all courts of justice, to take care for the general good of the community, that hard cases do not make bad law. Referring earlier cases the court observed that absurdity should be understood in the same sense as repugnance that is to say something which would be as absurd with reference to the other words of the statute as to amount to repugnance.[21]
CONCLUSION
The ‘Golden Rule’ could, thus, be explained as follows:
- It is the duty of the Court to give effect to the meaning of an Act when the meaning can be fairly gathered from the words used, that is to say, if one construction would lead to an absurdity while another will give effect to what common sense would show, as obviously intended, the construction which would defeat the ends of the Act must be rejected even if the same words used in the same section, and even the same sentence, have to be construed differently. Indeed, the law goes so far as to require the courts sometimes even to modify the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words, if by doing so absurdity and inconsistency can be avoided.[22]
- The Court should not be astute to defeat the provision of the Act whose meaning is, on the face of it, reasonably plain. Of course, this does not mean that an Act or any part of it can be recast. It must be possible to spell the meaning contended for, out of the words actually used.[23]
Unless the words are without meaning or absurd, it would be safe to give words their natural meaning because the frame is presumed to use the language which conveys the intention[24] and it would not be in accord with any sound principle of construction to refuse to give effect to the provisions of a statute on the very elusive ground that to give them their ordinary meaning leads to consequences which are not in accord with the notions of propriety or justice entertained by the Court.[25]
*Disclaimer: The contents of the blog are not intended to convey any legal advice to the reader neither the blog creates any attorney-client relationship. You may contact an enrolled legal practitioner for assistance with your legal needs.*
[2]See Roy Wilson, QC and Brian Galpin, “Maxwell on The Interpretation of Statutes”, 11th Ed. , 1962
[3]See P. St. J. Langan, “Maxwell on The Interpretation of Statutes”, 12th Ed., 19th Impression 2011, pg. 1
[4]See The rules of statutory interpretation, available at https://www.translegal.com/lesson/statutory-interpretation-2
[6]See GOLDEN RULE OF INTERPRETATION by Sameer Sharma, available at http://www.lawyersclubindia.com/articles/GOLDEN-RULE-OF-INTERPRETATION-3105.asp#.Vf1LKPmqqko
[8](1955) 1 SCR 829, 836-7
[10](1854) 23 LJCP 108 ,p 144
[11]See The Golden Rule of Interpretation by Shraddha Agrawal, available at http://www.lawctopus.com/academike/golden-rule-interpretation/
[12]T.S. Baliah v. T.S. Regachari, AIR 1969 SC 701: (1969) 3 SCR 65: (1969) 72 1TR 787 (SC)
[13](1975) AC 373
[17](1963) AC 557
[18](1890) 25 QBD 357
[19][1912] UKHL 3; (1913) AC 107
[20][1976] 3 S.C.R. 160
[21]Supra note 11
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