INTERPRETATION OF STATUTES:

Golden Rule of Interpretation

SUBMITTED BY: SUBMITTED TO:

MIHIR SINGH DR. ARUN KLAIR
1120202174 ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
LAW
BBA LLB
HIMACHAL PRADESH
9th SEMESTER
NATIONAL LAW
UNIVERSITY, SHIMLA.
DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the assignment entitled “Golden Rule of Interpretation” submitted by
me to Himachal Pradesh National Law University, Shimla is a record of Bonafede project
work carried out by me, Mihir Singh, under the guidance of Dr. Arun Klair. I further declare
that the work reported in this project has not been submitted and will not be submitted, either
in part or in full, for the award of any other degree or diploma in this institute or any other
institute or university.

Mihir Singh

Date: 01-11-2024
INTRODUCTION

“The essence of law lies in the spirit, not its letter, for the letter is significant only as being
the external manifestation of the intention that underlies it” – Salmond

Statutory interpretation is the process of interpreting and applying legislation to decide cases.
Interpretation is necessary when the case involves subtle or ambiguous aspects of a statute.
Generally, the words of a statute have a plain and straightforward meaning. But in some
cases, there may be ambiguity or vagueness in the words of the statute that must be resolved
by the judge. The reason for ambiguity or vagueness of legislation is the fundamental nature
of language. It is not always possible to precisely transform the intention of the legislature
into written words.

Very often occasions will arise where the courts will be called upon to interpret the words,
phrases and expressions used in the statute. There are numerous rules of statutory
interpretation. Over time, various methods of statutory construction have fallen in and out of
favour. Some of the better-known rules of construction methods are The Golden rule, The
Literal rule, The Mischief rule and The Purposive approach.1

Whenever literal interpretation leads to an irrational result that is unlikely to be the

legislature’s intention, the court can depart from that meaning. It is such a rule which
disposes of ambiguity,’ inconsistency, unclarity, hardship, inconvenience, injustice, etc. arose
from the language of Statute while interpreting it. Hence the golden rule is an exception and
has an important place in the Interpretation of Statutes to the literal rule and will be used
where the literal rule produces the result where Parliament’s intention would be circumvented
rather than applied. Golden rule is a principle of statutory construction that the grammatical
and ordinary sense of words may be modified so as to avoid an absurdity or inconsistency,
but no farther.

Interpretation is of two kinds – grammatical and logical. Grammatical interpretation is

arrived at by reference to the laws of speech to the words used in the statute; in other words,
it regards only the verbal expression of the legislature. Logical interpretation gives effect to
the intention of the legislature by considering other circumstances permissible according to
the rules settled in this behalf. ‘Proper construction’ is not satisfied by taking the words as if
they were self-contained phrases. So considered, the words do not yield the meaning of a
statute.
1
Prof. T. Bhattacharyya, The interpretation of Statutes (Central Law Agency, Allahabad, 10 th edn, 2017).
A statute is the will of the legislature and the fundamental rule of interpretation, to which all
others are subordinate, and that a statute is to be expounded, according to the intent of them
that made it. The object of interpretation is to find out the intention of the legislature. 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.

MEANING OF GOLDEN RULE OF INTERPRETATION

The rule was defined by Lord Wensleydale in the Grey v Pearson case (1857) as: “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 the
absurdity and inconsistency, but no farther.”

Therefore, it is the modification of the literal rule of interpretation. The literal rule
emphasises on the literal meaning of legal words or words used in the legal context which
may often lead to ambiguity and absurdity. The golden rule tries to avoid anomalous and
absurd consequences from arising from literal interpretation. In view of the same, the
grammatical meaning of such words is usually modified.

The court is usually interested in delivering justice and in order to foresee the consequences
of their decisions the golden rule is usually applied. This rule of interpretation aims at giving
effect to the spirit of the law as the mere mechanical and grammatical meaning may not be
sufficient.

According to Maxwell, “The golden rule is that words of Institute must prima facie be given
their ordinary meaning.”

According to Gray, “the process by which a judge (or indeed any person, lawyer or layman,
who has occasion to search for the meaning of a statute) constructs from words of a statute
book, a meaning which he either believes to be that of the legislature, or which he proposes
to attribute to it, is called interpretation”.
The words of a statute must be prima facie according to Golden Rule to be given their
ordinary meaning because when meaning of the word is plain, it is not the duty of the courts
to busy themselves with supposed intention. But when grammatical interpretation leads to
absurdity it is permissible to depart from and to interpret the provision of statues in such a
manner so that absurdity is removed.2

The court when faced with more than one possible interpretation of an enactment is entitled
to take into consideration the result of each interpretation in a bid to arrive at the true
intention of the legislature. The golden rule provides no clear means to test the existence or
extent of an absurdity. It seems to depend on the result of each individual case. Whilst the
golden rule has the advantage of avoiding absurdities, it therefore has the disadvantage that
no test exists to determine what is an absurdity.

In short, it is an interpretation which will give effect to the purpose of legislature, when the
words itself become ambiguous, by modification of the language used. On the face of it, this
rule solves all problems and is therefore known as “Golden Rule.” Further since the literal
meaning is modified to some extent, this approach is also called the modifying method of
interpretation. This rule, therefore, suggests that the consequences or effect of an
interpretation deserve a lot more importance because there are clues to the true meaning of a
legislation.

ORIGIN OF GOLDEN RULE OF INTERPRETATION

In the year 1857, for the first time, Lord Wensleydale propounded the golden rule of
interpretation, in Grey Vs. Pearson. Thereafter this rule has become famous by the name of
Wensleydale’s Golden rule.

The Golden Rule was used in the R v Allen case (1872). In this the defendant was charged
with bigamy (S.57 of offences against the person act 1861) which, under statutes states:

2
Brief regarding rules of interpretation of statutes, available at: https://taxguru.in/corporate-law/rules-
interpretation-statutes.html
‘whosoever being married shall marry any other person during the lifetime of the former
husband or wife is guilty of an offence’.

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.

APPROACH OF THE GOLDEN RULE

The golden rule can be applied in two ways:

 Narrow Approach– This approach is applied when the word or phrases capable of
more than one literal meaning. This allows the judge to apply the meaning which
avoids the absurdity.
 Broad Approach– This approach is applied when there is only one literal meaning.
But applying that one literal meaning would cause an absurdity. Under this approach
the court will modify the meaning to avoid the absurdity. The modification shall be
keeping in mind the intention of the Parliament making the law in question.

The golden rule of statutory interpretation allows a shift from the ordinary sense of a word(s)
if the overall content of the document demands it. It states that if the literal rule produces an
absurdity, then the court should look for another meaning of the words to avoid that absurd
result. 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
the absurdity and inconsistency, but no farther.3

SIGNIFICANCE OF GOLDEN RULE

3
Becke v Smith,1836 150 E.R. 724
The significance of the golden rule in the interpretation is explained followed:

 It becomes the duty of the Court to give effect to meaning of a law when it can lead to
absurdity or defeat the ends of the enactment. The law requires the court sometimes to
go to the extent of modification in the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words

 The court shall not go in the path that defeats the provision of a law whose meaning
is, prima facie, reasonably plain and lucid. However, this does not mean that a law
could be recast. It must be possible to find the meaning contended for out the words
that are being used.

 Unless the words of the law are absurd, ambiguous or without a proper meaning, it is
preferable to construe them through their natural and ordinary meaning.

APPLICATION OF GOLDEN RULE

The golden rule can be put forward as a compromise between the literal rule and the mischief
rule. It follows the path of literal interpretation by giving the status its ordinary meaning. At
the same time, when the literal interpretation leads to an irrational result unlikely to the ends
of the act, the court can deviate from the literal sense. Also, while using, abides by the public
policy.4

An illustration of the use of the rule in its wider as well as its narrower sense is given below:

If there is a sign that say, “Do not use the elevators in case of fire,” the literal interpretation
would mean never to use the elevator while there is a fire. However, this interpretation is
absurd and what the sign truly tries to convey is to prevent using the elevators when a fire is
nearby.

While using the wider approach, the golden rule avoids a result that would go against the
public policy. For example, A son murders his mother and commits suicide. According to the
law, the heirs of the mother’s property would be either the mother’s family or the son’s
descendants. Since there is a question of profiting from the crime, the court is likely to favour
the mother’s family in the interest of public policy.

4
Prof. T. Bhattacharyya, The interpretation of Statutes (Central Law Agency, Allahabad, 10 th edn, 2017).
 The Golden Rule enables the court to look at the literal meaning of an Act. This rule allows a
Judge to depart from a statute’s normal meaning to avoid an absurd result. This rule of
statutory interpretation may be applied when an application of the Literal Rule would lead to
an absurdity. The Golden Rule gives the words of a statute their basic, ordinary meaning.
However, when this may lead to an illogical result that is unlikely to be the legislature’s
intention, the golden rule allows a Judge to depart from this meaning.5

If the choice is between two interpretations, said Viscount Simon, L.C. in Nokes v. Doncaster
Amalgamated Collieries Ltd.6 “We should avoid a construction which would reduce the
legislation to futility or the narrower one which would fail to achieve the manifest purpose of
the legislation. We should rather accept the bolder construction based on the view that
Parliament would legislate only for the purpose of bringing about an effective result. Thus, if
the language is capable of more than one interpretation, one ought to discard the literal or
natural meaning if it leads to an unreasonable result, and adopt that interpretation which
leads to reasonably practical results.”

In this case Section 154 of the Companies Act, 1929, was in question. This provision
provided machinery for the transfer of the undertaking (an old company) to a new company.
Under the section, “transfer” includes all property, rights, liabilities and duties of the former
company vest with the latter. An issue therefore was whether a contract of service previously
existing between an individual and transferor company automatically becomes a contract
between the individual and the latter company.

Hence, an action was taken against him; however, no notice was given to him about the
proposed amalgamation either by the transferor or the transferee company. It was contended
that the contract of service could fall under the term “property”. Rejecting the contention, the
House of Lords held that the benefits of a contract entered into between the former company
and the employee cannot be transferred (by X company to Y company) without the consent of
the employee.

It is said 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.
5
Radhika Saxena “The Golden Rule of Interpretation” 22 IJN 17 (2020).
6
Sidharth Sabu “Golden Rule of Interpretation” 20 LLNN 12 (2020).
DIFFICULTIES IN THE APPLICATION OF GOLDEN RULE

Lord Moulten in Vacher & Sons v. London Society of Compositor, 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 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 public at large may come in conflict of
some individual interest or take away his legal right and cause injustice to him. Like public
policy, absurdity, uncertainty or repugnance, are very unruly horses.

In State Bank of India v. Shri N. Sundara Money,7 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

In the case of Grundi v. Great Boulder Proprietary Cold Mines Ltd., Lord Greene M.R. said,
“Although 38 absurdity or non-absurdity of one conclusion as capered with another may be
and very often is, of assistance to the court in choosing between two possible meanings of
ambiguous words. The Golden Rule of Construction is a doctrine, which must be applied
with great care, remembering that judges may be fallible in this question of absurdity and in
any event, it must not be applied so as to result in twisting language into a meaning, which it
cannot bear. It is a doctrine which must not be used to re-write the language in a way different
from that in which it was originally framed.”

7
[1976] 3 S.C.R. 160
ADVANTAGES OF GOLDEN RULE

 It allows the judge to choose the most sensible meaning where there is more than one
meaning to the words in the Act or Statute.

 It respects the words of the parliament except in limited situations, the golden rule

 provides an escape route where there is a problem with using the literal meaning.

 It can also provide reasonable decisions in cases where the literal rule would lead to
repugnant situations (this goes for the wider meaning) – This is present in the Re
Sigsworth case in the case example, because allowing the son to benefit from his
crime would have been unjust.

 A major advantage of the Golden Rule is that judge can technically change the law by
changing the meaning of words in statues. They can, potentially infringing the
separation of power between legal and legislature.

 Another main advantage of the Golden Rule is that drafting errors in status can be
corrected immediately. This is seen in the R V Allen (1872) case where the loopholes
were closed, the decision was in line with parliament’s intentions, and it gave a more
just outcome.

DISADVANTAGE OF GOLDEN RULE

 There are no real guidelines as to when it can be used

 It is very limited in it is use, so it is only used on rare occasions

 It’s not always possible to predict whether courts will use the golden rule, making it
hard for lawyers and people who are advising their clients.

 What seems to be absurd to one judge may not be to another so this means a case
outcome is decided upon the judge, rather than the law

 The Golden Rule will not be help if there is no absurdity in the statute. For example,
in the case of London and North Eastern Railway v. Berriman,8 where the widow
8
[1946] AC 278
 couldn’t get compensation because the wording of the statute didn’t allow for this
circumstance.

CRITICISM OF THE GOLDEN RULE

The Golden Rule is probably the most well-known ethical code of all time. It was used by the
Romans, the Chinese, the Greeks and adopted by every major religion imaginable. And at
first glance it does seem like a good ethical code to hold by as a society. However, the golden
rule is not only flawed and selfish, but it can also justify immoral acts. The main reason for
the golden rule is flawed is because the moral standard and criteria is not based on others
desires and preferences and it’s not even solely focused on what our preferences and desires
are. The Golden Rule implies the basic assumption that other people would like to be treated
the way that you would like to be treated. And with that we are inevitably led to moral
relativism, whatever your moral standard and desires are, is what is morally good for others.9

Now such moral thinking can be counter-productive and used to justify immoral acts.
Consider a suicide bomber, a suicide bomber has no regard for his own life, he is literally
killing himself. According to the golden rule treating someone should be based on how you
want to be treated and since the suicide bomber is treating himself with death is it therefor
justified that he could kill others?

The word “absurdity” is a vague concept and arises only in a few cases where it necessary for
the court to apply the golden rule of interpretation. Golden rule suffers from the same
problems which were faced by the Literal approach i.e. lack of wider contextual
understanding of “meanings.” The majority of the cases contain tough scenarios where touch
choices have to be made between many credible arguments, not scenarios in places where
wordings of the legislation take you to obvious ambiguity.10

The ‘golden rule’ gives a court opportunities to create exceptions given public that are not
based on the social subject matter under the legislation, not even on the consequences of the
wordings made use by the law-making body, but entirely on the social and political
perceptions of the judges who deal with such difficult cases.

9
Langan P St. J, Maxwell, The Interpretation of Statutes, Lexi Nexis Butterworths Wadhwa, 12 th edn., (2010).
10
Rosedar S R A, Interpretation of Statutes.
They are not rules in any ordinary sense of the word since they all point to different solutions
to the same problem. Nor is there any indication, either in the so-called rules or elsewhere, as
to which to apply in any given situation. Each of them may be applied but need not be.
Following are criticized that is made by Zander about the golden rule for being silent as to
how the court should proceed if it does find an unacceptable absurdity11:

1. It suffers from the same difficulties as the literal approach vis a lack of wider
contextual understandings of “meanings.”

2. The idea of “absurdity” covers only a very few cases. Most cases involve situations
where difficult choices have to be made between several fairly plausible arguments,
not situations where the words lead to obvious absurdities.

3. The use of the “absurdity” safety valve can be very erratic as pointed out by Professor
Willis in his famous article, “Statute Interpretation in a Nutshell”

The result is that in ultimate analysis the ‘golden rule’ does allow a court to make quite
openly exceptions which are based not on the social policy behind the Act, not even on the
total effect of the words used by the legislature, but purely on the social and political views of
the men who happen to be sitting on the case.

CONCLUSION

Every nation has its own judicial system, the purpose of which to grant justice to all. The
court aims to interpret the law in such a manner that every citizen is ensured justice to all. To
ensure justice to all the concept of canons of interpretation was expounded. These are the
rules which are evolved for determining the real intention of the legislature.

It is not necessary that the words used in a statute are always clear, explicit and unambiguous
and thus, in such cases it is very essential for courts to determine a clear and explicit meaning
of the words or phrases used by the legislature and at the same time remove all the doubts if
any.

Hence, the Golden Rule of Interpretation could be concluded as—12

11
The Law Making Process (4th edition, 1994).
12
Prof. T. Bhattacharyya, The interpretation of Statutes (Central Law Agency, Allahabad, 10 th edn, 2017).
 If the language of Statute is clear, unambiguous, and ordinary, then its meaning should
be in accordance with that.

 Statutes should be interpreted to materialize the intention of the legislature,

 Words leading to more than one meaning should always be understood in the meaning
which is balanced and discretional.

 Should avoid or prevent inconsistent or inconvenient results.

 Such interpretation should be avoided and the result is directly causing injustice.

 Meaningless and Illogical Interpretation should not be accepted

 If the language of Statute is not clear or leads to more than one meaning or not
showing the intention of the legislature, then the language used in Statute could be
reformed and other rules of interpretation can be used for the help. This is the Golden
Rule of Interpretation.