What Are The Three Canons Of Statutory Interpretation

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STATUTORY INTERPRETATION

Statutory interpretation can be defined as a process adopted by the judges or the court to interpret a statute and to apply legislation. In an interpretation there are many ambiguous terms that create a lot of uncertainty in one’s mind and this can only be resolved by judicial interpretation. Interpretation of a statute by a judiciary is important because the common people and the client’s of the lawyer need to know how the judges are interpreting the statute. Judiciary interprets the statue by using three “rules” or “canons” of interpretation. The reason we call this cannon and not “rules” is because only the judiciary need not do the interpretation and by calling them rules it can be fallacious argument. The three canons of interpretation are:
1) The literal rule
2) The mischief rule
3) The golden rule
The Literal rule-This rule of respects the sovereignty of the parliament .In this rule the judges interpret a statute by not what it exactly means, but by what …show more content…

The second problem is that the judges do not posses any power to intervene for the injustice where there is no absurdity; the example for this is the case between London & North Eastern Railway v Berriman(1946) . In this case a railway worker was killed along the railway line while he was oiling the railway tracks. The widow of the railway worker sued the London & North Eastern Railway for compensation. The court stated that according to the Fatal Accident Act the railway are liable to pay compensation to only those people who were killed while relying or repairing the track. The court held in favor of the London & North Eastern Railway and said that oiling of track does not come in the category of relying or repairing the track therefore the railway authority are not