Doctrine of Literal interpretation CRITICISM:

This is the oldest of the rules of construction and is still used today, primarily because judges may not legislate. As there is always the danger that a particular interpretation may be the equivalent of making law, some judges prefer to adhere to the law's literal wording. Opponents of the plain meaning rule claim that the rule rests on the erroneous assumption that words have a fixed meaning. In law, strictly literal interpretations of statutes can lead to logically deduce absurdities, and the Doctrine of Absurdity is that commonsense interpretations should be used in such cases, rather than literal reading of a law or of original intent. The Absurdity doctrine is a doctrine in legal theory, also known as "Scrivner's Error"; in which American courts have interpreted statutes contrary to their plain meaning in order to avoid absurd legal conclusions. l) The most fundamental objection to the rule is that it is based on a false premise, namely that words have plain, ordinary meanings apart from their context. Professor H.L.A. Hart of Oxford has argued that a word has a core meaning 'or standard instance in which no doubts are felt about its application' even though at the edges there is a margin of uncertainty. But Professor Lon Fuller has contested this by urging that meaning attaches not to individual words but to sentences and paragraphs, and that 'surely a paragraph does not have a "standard instance" that remains constant whatever the context in which it appears.' If a statute seems to have a core meaning 'this is because we can see that, however one might formulate the precise objective of the statute, this case would still come within it.' (2) Those who apply the literal approach often talk of using the 'dictionary meaning' of the words in question, but dictionaries normally provide a number of alternative meanings. (3) The plain-meaning approach cannot be used for general words, which are obviously capable of bearing several meanings. The doctrine of literalness can never be applied successfully to general words. For they always include something more than the scope and object of the statute require and so it leads to ridiculous results. (4) Not infrequently the courts say that the meaning of the words is 'plain' but then disagree as to their interpretations. (5) The plain-meaning theory may be acceptable outside the courtroom, since it could be true that a high proportion of statutory materials and other legal documents can in fact be interpreted without recourse to any mischief or golden rule. But in the court room there are by definition two parties, usually represented by counsel, arguing over the meaning of the relevant passage. It makes little sense to dispose of the issue between them by reference to the plain meaning when there are two meanings in issue.

The most common retort from those who favour the literal approach is that, in spite of some problems, it promotes the certainty which is one of the chief objectives of any legal system. But does it?

' Judges were torn between a feeling of obligation to adhere to the doctrine and a feeling of revolt against what they regarded as an absurdity and injustice. So if literalness seemed too ridiculous or threatened things which the judge regarded as fundamental, he exerted himself to escape its conclusion. Even those judges who insisted strongly upon the principle of literal adherence to the words, deserted it in such circumstances.' Lord Tenterden, who fathered the doctrine, sometimes found that literal meanings could not have been intended. And Lord Bramwell, who affirmed the doctrine with his usual vigour and challenged anyone to show him an absurdity so great as to entitle him to depart from the plain meaning, had some interesting lapses ... Lord Halsbury stated the doctrine of literalness as uncompromisingly as anyone. But in a case before the House of Lords in l890 he deserted it and appealed to the "equity of the statute."' The literal approach is based on a narrow concentration on the actual words used, to the exclusion of the surrounding circumstances that might explain what the words were actually intended to mean A final criticism of the literal approach to interpretation is that it is defeatist and lazy. The judge gives up the attempt to understand the document at the first attempt. Instead of struggling to discover what it means, he simply adopts the most straightforward interpretation of the words in question - without regard to whether this interpretation makes sense in the particular context.

When departure is allowed? The propriety of departing from the literal interpretation extends to any situation in which for good reason the operation of the statute on a literal reading does not conform to the legislative intent as ascertained from the provisions of the statute, including the policy which may be discerned from those provision. The departure from the plain meaning or Literal meaning may be undertaken in case where the object of the statute is clear and there is some degree of uncertainty about the literal meaning.[blogger] "Of course it is true that the words used, even in their literal sense, are the primary, and ordinarily the most reliable, source of interpreting the meaning of any writing: be it a statute, a contract or anything else. But it is one of the surest indexes of a mature developed jurisprudence not to make a fortress out of the dictionary; but to remember that statutes always have some purpose or object to accomplish, whose sympathetic and imaginative discovery is the surest guide to their meaning." 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 which can hardly have been intended, a construction may be put upon it which modifies the meaning of the words and even the structure of the sentence. This may be done by departing from the rules of grammar, by giving an unusual meaning to particular words, or by rejecting them altogether, on the ground that the legislature could not possibly have intended what its words signify, and that the modifications made are mere corrections of careless language and really give the true meaning. Where the main object and intention of a statute are clear, it must not be reduced to a nullity by the draftsmans unskilfulness or ignorance of the law, except in a case of necessity, or the absolute intractability of the language used. Lord Reid has said that he prefers to see a mistake on the part of the draftsman in doing his revision rather than a deliberate attempt to introduce an irrational rule: the canons of construction are not so rigid as to prevent a realistic solution.

Mischief Rule Heydon's Case (1584) 76 ER 637, Pasch 26 Eliz, plea began 20 Eliz Rot 140, is a landmark case. The case is considered a landmark because it was the first case to use what would come to be called the mischief rule for the interpretation of statutes. The mischief rule is more flexible than the Golden or Literal rule, in that the mischief rule requires judges to look over four tasks to ensure that gaps within the law are covered. Ottery, a religious college, gave a tenancy in a manor to a man and his son, also referred to as Ware. The tenancy was established by copyhold, an ancient device for giving a parcel of a manor to a tenant, usually in return for agricultural services. The Wares copyhold was in a parcel also occupied by some tenants at will. Later, the college then leased the same parcel to another man, named Heydon, for a period of eighty years in return for rents equal to the traditional rent for the components of the parcel. Less than a year after the parcel had been leased to Heydon, Parliament enacted the Act of Dissolution. The statute had the effect of dissolving many religious colleges, including Ottery College, which lost its lands and rents to Henry VIII. However, a provision of the Act saved any grants made more than a year prior to the enactment of the statute. The Court of Exchequer found that the grant to the Wares was protected by the relevant provision of the Act of Dissolution, but that the lease to Heydon was void. The ruling was based on an important discussion of the relationship of a statute to the preexisting common law. The court concluded that the purpose of the statute was to cure a mischief resulting from a defect in the common law. Therefore, the court concluded, the remedy of the statute was limited to curing that defect. Judges are supposed to construe statutes by seeking the true intent of the makers of the Act, which is presumed to be pro bono publico, or intent for the public good. Lord Coke described the process through which the court must interpret legislation.

For the sure and true interpretation of all statutes in general (be they penal or beneficial, restrictive or enlarging of the common law), four things are to be discerned and considered: (1st). What was the common law before the making of the Act? (2nd). What was the mischief and defect for which the common law did not provide. (3rd). What remedy the Parliament hath resolved and appointed to cure the disease of the commonwealth. And, (4th). The true reason of the remedy; and then the office of all the judges is always to make such construction as shall suppress the mischief, and advance the remedy, and to suppress subtle inventions and evasions for continuance of the mischief, and pro privato commodo, and to add force and life to the cure and remedy, according to the true intent of the makers of the Act, pro bono publico