The Golden Rule

In one line

Start with the ordinary meaning, and depart from it only so far as is necessary to avoid an absurdity, a repugnance or an inconsistency.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the golden rule of interpretation is that the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to unless that would lead to some absurdity, repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument, in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense may be modified so as to avoid that absurdity and inconsistency, but no further; and the Supreme Court has stated the same rule in the form that where the language of a statute, in its ordinary meaning and grammatical construction, leads to a manifest contradiction of the apparent purpose of the enactment, or to some inconvenience or absurdity, hardship or injustice presumably not intended, a construction may be put upon it which modifies the meaning of the words and even the structure of the sentence.

Why the rule exists

Because the literal rule, applied without relief, sometimes produces a result that nobody could have intended and that the statute itself contradicts.

The classic English illustration is a statute making it an offence for a person to be found in a public place while drunk and in charge of a carriage, horse, cattle or steam engine, applied to a person too drunk to be in charge of anything. Another is a rule that no member of a religious order may be admitted to a hospital, applied to a nun who has been run over.

The golden rule is the safety valve. It is not a separate approach to construction. It is the literal rule with one exception, and stating it that way is what separates a good answer from an average one.

The formula

The classic English statement is that of Lord Wensleydale in Grey v. Pearson, decided in 1857: the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to unless that would lead to some absurdity, or some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument, in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified so as to avoid that absurdity and inconsistency, but no farther.

Three limbs, and each does work.

The starting point is the ordinary sense. The golden rule does not authorise a court to begin anywhere else.

Three triggers, and only three. Absurdity; repugnance with the rest of the instrument; inconsistency with the rest of the instrument. A result that is merely harsh, or unwise, or that the court would not have chosen, is not a trigger.

"But no farther." The modification is the minimum necessary to remove the absurdity. A court that goes further is rewriting the section.