The Literal Rule

In one line

Give the words of a statute their ordinary, natural and grammatical meaning, and if that meaning is clear, apply it.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: the literal or grammatical rule of construction requires that the words of a statute be given their ordinary, plain and natural meaning, in their grammatical sense, without addition or subtraction; where the language is clear and unambiguous the court must give effect to it whatever the consequences, because the intention of the legislature is to be gathered from the words it has used, and it is not for a court to speculate on what the legislature meant to say as distinct from what it has said.

Why the literal rule is the primary rule

Three reasons, and giving all three shows the rule is a principle and not a habit.

The words are the only thing the legislature actually enacted. Members voted on a text. They did not vote on a purpose, on a committee report, or on what any of them said in the House. If a court departs from the text, it is applying something nobody enacted.

Separation of powers. Making the law belongs to the legislature and applying it to the courts. A court that reads words the legislature did not use is legislating.

Certainty. People arrange their affairs by reading the statute. A rule that words mean what they say lets a lawyer advise; a rule that words mean what a court thinks the legislature would have wanted does not.

What the rule requires, step by step

One, read the whole Act. The literal rule is not a rule about reading one sentence in isolation; it is a rule about the ordinary meaning of the words in their context, which includes the section, the Chapter and the Act.

Two, check whether the word is defined. A defined word bears its defined meaning, and no dictionary and no ordinary usage displaces it. This is why [Fact, Person, Offence and State] insists on looking at the definitions clause first, then at the General Clauses Act, and only then at ordinary usage.

Three, give the undefined words their ordinary, natural and grammatical meaning. Ordinary means the meaning an ordinary speaker would give. Grammatical means that the syntax is respected: which noun a relative clause attaches to, what "and" and "or" do, where a proviso attaches.

Four, apply the statutory rules of language. Section 13 of the General Clauses Act 1897 provides that in all Central Acts and Regulations, unless there is anything repugnant in the subject or context, words importing the masculine gender shall be taken to include females, and words in the singular shall include the plural and vice versa. Section 9 provides that it is sufficient, to exclude the first in a series of days, to use the word "from", and to include the last, to use the word "to".