Interpretation of Statutes

This renowned work on Interpretation of Statutes is an intelligent combination of description and analysis. It captures the latest developments and also analyses how these developments have contributed to the theory and practice of interpretation.

The book firstly situates the process of interpretation within the institutional relationship subsisting between the Legislature, the Executive, and the Court.

Another part examines how rules of interpretation change when the context alters. Thus, a penal statute is read differently from a welfare or tax statute. And rules which hold good for statutes do not apply to the interpretation of the Constitution. Courts are not just guided by the intention of the legislature or technical rules of interpretation but also by how a word, phrase or issue has been addressed in the past by earlier courts. Consequently, the theory of precedents and its impact on statutory interpretation has been analytically studied in the last part of the book.