Overview: Statutory interpretation

• Author: Ruth Sullivan
• Profession: Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
• Pages: 1-4

1

OVERV IEW

STATUTORY

INTERPRETATION

Anyone who has practised law for even a short while soon realizes t he

central role of interpretation in law. Whether one is putting together a

deal for a client, applying for a benef‌it, or attempting to avoid a penalty,

words are sure to be involved and to require interpret ation. In fact,

it is impossible to do anythi ng in law without interpreting t he words

of others and anticipating how others w ill interpret (or misinterpret)

one’s own. Legislat ion consists of words; so do judgments, contracts,

trusts and wills, corporate by-laws, a nd rules of court. The law is ex-

tracted from these texts through interpretat ion.

Although this book focuses on statutory interpretation, much of it

is relevant to the interpretation of legal documents like contracts and

wills and to legal texts generally. It is meant to do a number of things:

• give basic informat ion about the operation of legislation and the dif-

ferent types of legislat ion;

• establish a coherent framework for the dis parate array of stat utory

interpretation rules;

• offer clear and concise explanations of each rule, with comment ary

and illustration;

• introduce readers to the constitut ional framework in which inter pre-

tation occurs and the doctr inal issues that currently concern judges

and other interpreters; and,

• above all, indicate how the rules a re used in analysi s of legislative texts

and the construction of arguments to justif y particular outcomes.