Statutory Interpretation

1. Statutory Interpretation – The
Golden Rule
By Mrs J. Arthur

2. Introduction
• Under the golden rule for statutory
interpretation, where the literal rule gives an
absurd result, which Parliament could not
have intended, the judge can substitute a
reasonable meaning in the light of the statute
as a whole.

3. Golden Rule Contd.
• The rationale of the rule is that the legislature
could not possibly have intended what its words
signify, and that modifications thus made are
mere corrections of careless language which
give the true meaning and object of parliament.

4. Golden Rule
• Lord Blackburn explained it in River Wear
Commissioners v Adamson (1877): as “giving
the words their ordinary signification, unless
when so applied they produce an absurdity or
inconvenience so great” as to convince the
court that it could not have been Parliament’s
intention to give the words their ordinary
meaning.

5. Golden Rule Contd.
• The rule allows the court to:
– alter the structure of sentences
– give unusual meaning to particular words
– alter the collation or
– reject them altogether

6. Golden Rule Contd.
• In Davis v R. The appellant parked his car at
the airport. He was charged and convicted by a
magistrate for an offence which prohibited ‘parking
a vehicle elsewhere than in the place provided for
that purpose and in the manner required by an
authorised officer’. On appeal, it was submitted by
counsel for the appellant that the provision yielded
an absurd meaning. The Court of Appeal agreed.

7. Golden Rule
• The Court found that a literal interpretation of the
regulation made ‘nonsense’ of it. The intention of
the statute maker could only have been to require
that all persons park in authorised parking places,
and that when they do park there, to park in a
manner that was in accordance with directions.
• Two offences had been created, one of parking in
the wrong place, and the other of parking in the
wrong manner

8. Golden Rule
• For example, motorists must park so that
they do not block the entrance or exit, or
prevent the removal of another car already
parked there.
• Accordingly, the Court introduced the words
‘elsewhere than’ to qualify the words ‘in the
manner required’ so that the regulation could
read intelligibly and sensibly and the object of
the Act preserved.

9. Golden Rule
• It held that the appellant was charged
with a breach of the first portion of the
regulation – ‘parking elsewhere than in
a place provided’ – and was clearly
proved to have committed that offence.

10. Golden Rule
• R v Allen (1872) Section 57 of the Offences Against the
Person Act 1861 stated that: “Whosoever being married
shall marry any other person during the life of the former
husband or wife ... shall be guilty of bigamy”
• It was impossible for a person already married to “marry”
someone else – they might go through a marriage
ceremony, but would not actually be married. Using the
literal rule would make the statute useless.
• The courts there held that “shall marry” should be
interpreted to mean “shall go though a marriage
ceremony”.

11. Golden Rule
• The golden rule contemplates that a court
can ignore grammatical errors within a
statute if the words are clear.
• In Enmore Estates Ltd v Darsan. In that
case, there was an error of grammar in the
Workmen’s Compensation Ordinance of
Guyana, which the Privy Council ignored
correctly in construing the statute.

12. Golden Rule Contd.
• Judicial authorities therefore establish that the
judicial interpreter may deal with careless and
inaccurate words and phrases in the same spirit
as a critic deals with an obscure or corrupt text. If
he is satisfied, from the context or history of the
statute, or from the injustice, inconvenience, or
absurdity of the consequences to which it would
lead, that the language used does not ruly
express the intention, he or she may amend it
accordingly.

13. Criticisms of the rule
• The golden rule should not be viewed as a
significant departure from the literal rule.
• Essentially, it suggests that the judge must
follow the literal approach and the golden rule
will only be resorted to where the judge is
prepared to hold that the result of the literal
meaning is manifestly absurd or unreasonable.
• Priority is, therefore, still afforded to the literal
meaning of words.

14. Criticisms Contd.
• The rule contemplates only that errors or
omissions were made in the language and
does not attempt in a fundamental way, to
go behind the words used or which should
have been used in the statute

15. Criticisms Contd.
• There is also the danger, in allowing
judges to decide whether a meaning is
‘absurd’, that we are giving them too much
room to manoeuvre.
• They are perhaps being allowed the
freedom to deviate from Parliament’s
intention in accordance with their own
subjective evaluation of what is absurd.

16. Criticisms
• We should recall that the cardinal principle is
that judges do not make law, they only interpret
it.
• The golden rule, like the literal rule, still avoids
the utilisation of other aids, such as
parliamentary debates, to discover Parliament’s
true intention. At the same time, it allows
changes to Parliament’s words.