Golden rule (law)

The golden rule in English law is one of the rules of statutory construction traditionally applied by the English courts. The rule can be used to avoid the consequences of a literal interpretation of the wording of a statute when such an interpretation would lead to a manifest absurdity or to a result that is contrary to principles of public policy. The rule can be applied in two different ways, named respectively the narrow approach and the broad approach. The golden rule arises out of two fundamental principles: that courts must interpret statute "according to the intent of them that made it", and that "the words of the statute speak the intention of the Legislature". As a result, the text of the statute as a whole provides the context in which a given provision should be interpreted when resolving textual difficulties. This was first articulated by Burton J in the Irish case of Warburton v Loveland in 1828: I understand that this is a rule in the construction of methods, in the first case, the grammatical meaning of the words must be followed. If it contradicts or is inconsistent with the stated purpose, or contradicts the stated purpose of the statute, or contains any negligence, retaliation, or inconsistency, the grammatical meaning should be modified, expanded, or abbreviated. This kind of discomfort, but not anymore. This was affirmed by the House of Lords in 1832. Citing Warburton in the 1836 English case of Becke v Smith, Parke J (later Lord Wensleydale) stated: 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.