Dear Editor,
Mr Kowlassar Misir, in his letter of February 24th titled, ‘Unlikely that “rules of careful English” has become a principle of statutory interpretation’, unwittingly conceded the very point he was trying to refute. He quoted a Professor Driedger as saying “the words of an Act are to be read in their entire context in their grammatical and ordinary sense harmoniously with the scheme of the Act, the object of the Act and the intention of Parliament”. True. But isn’t grammar the very rules of English?
Our constitution and statutes are written in English. Understanding what these documents mean starts and most times (not always) ends with the words in their text. So, for instance, the US constitution says a President must have attained the age of 35 years. The meaning of this article is fully captured in the text. One therefore has no need to rely on the scheme of the constitution, legislative intent, object or purpose, precedents, the spirit of the law, original public meaning, or any of the other sources of meaning. At least, that’s my understanding from my small knowledge of these matters, biased as it is towards US jurisprudence.
Likewise, if our constitution and statute clearly state that elected members of the National Assembly are only those extracted from an elected list of candidates, then that is the end of the matter. Interpretation starts and ends with the text. The law means what it says. Only if the law is vague, ambiguous or contradictory, is one forced to turn to other sources of meaning, such as legislative intent and precedents. In the other larger number of cases, the rules of English language (grammar and sense) trump.
Yours faithfully,
Sherwood Lowe
