Meaning

Golden rule argument is an argument made by a lawyer during a jury trial to ask the jurors to put themselves in the place of the victim or the injured person and deliver the verdict that they would wish to receive if they were in that person’s position.

one of the three basic three rule of interpretation, Construction is “Golden Rule”. the Golden Rule of interpretation can be said as the modification of Grammatical Rule of Interpretation. The Golden rule is also called the British rule of interpretation. it was originated in England

in 1854 and it was coined by C.J. in the case of it is a form of statutory interpretation which allows a judge to depart from a normal meaning of the word in order to avoid an absurd result.

According to Maxwell, “The golden rule is that words of Institute must prima facie be given their ordinary meaning”.

According to Gray, “the process by which a judge (or indeed any person, lawyer or layman, who has occasion to search for the meaning of a statute) constructs from words of a statute book, a meaning which he either believes to be that of the legislature, or which he proposes to attribute to it, is called interpretation”.

As we know applying the bare letter of law sometimes may lead us to confusion and give us an absurd result, in order to overcome these kinds of results judges will give an opportunity to the lawyer to come up with a new interpretation to the law which will be more certain and accurate to the case. In the year 1857, for the first time, Lord Wesleyan propounded the golden rule of interpretation, in Grey Vs. Pearson. Thereafter this rule has become famous by the name of Wensleydale’s Golden rule. The Golden Rule was used in the R v Allen case (1872) 2 ALL ER 641 In this the defendant was charged with bigamy (S.57 of offences against the person act 1861) which, under statutes states: ‘whosoever being married shall marry any other person during the lifetime of the former husband or wife is guilty of an offence’.

This method of interpretation is also known as the compromise method between literal rule and the mischief rule. In the literal rule, judges will only use the word meaning nothing else, but sometimes this may be irrational and gives us unexpected results which will be unlikely to the legislator’s intention.

In the case of homographs, where a word can have more than one meaning, the judge can choose the meaning which is suitable in that particular case if the word only has only one meaning, but applying that would lead to a bad decision where the judge can apply that decision and arrive at a completely different meaning.

This rule is used in two main situations:

1. When the meaning of the word is too narrow.
2. When the word itself has ambiguity or absurdity.

For example: 

1. Whenever you stand near the lift it will be written that ‘’Do not use lifts in case of fire.’’ if you consider it in a literal sense you should never use the lifts, this would be an absurd result because the intention of the person who put the sign is to prevent use of lift when there is live fire burning anywhere near the lift.
2. When a son murdered his mother and committed suicide, now the court has to decide who will inherit the property is its mother’s family or the son’s descendants. The judgment came out in favour of the mother’s family, here what we have observed here is that the son never had the intention of making a profit by his crime, but now this judgment will be binding on all the lower courts.

R v. Allen, 1872 The defendant was charged with an offence of bigamy under section 57 of ‘offence against person act 1861’. The statutes states “whoever being married shall marry any other person during the lifetime of husband and wife is guilty of an offense.”

Under the literal rule of interpretation of this section, the offense would be impossible to commit since the civil law will not recognize a second marriage as an attempt to marry in such circumstances would not be recognized as a valid marriage. Court applied the golden rule and held that the word marriage should be interpreted as ‘to go through a marriage ceremony.’ The defendant was convicted and held guilty.

Adler v George case, 1964 Under section 3 of the ‘official secrets act,1920’ it was an offence to obstruct HM Forces in the vicinity of a prohibited area. Adler was arrested for obstructing forces whilst in a prohibited area. Under The Literal Rule, Adler was not in the vicinity of the area, he was in the area and so was not infringing the terms of the act. The Golden Rule was applied to extend the meaning of ‘vicinity’ and avoid the possible absurd outcome.

Golden Rule of Interpretation in India:

According to the Goleden Rule the Courts in order to find out the intention of the legislatures from the word used in the Statues, give the words their original and natural meaning. The Supreme Court applied The Golden “Rule of Interpretation in Golakanath’s Case AIR 1967 SC 1643, in this case Supreme Court applied the Golden Rule of interpretation held that the Parliament cannot amend the constitution affecting the provision under part III of the Constitution (Fundamental Rights) of the constitution.

In Lee v. Knapp, (1967) 2 QB 442. section 77(1) of the Road Traffic Act, 1960 provided that “a driver causing accident shall stop after the accident”, the interpretation of the word “stop” was in question. In this case, the driver of the motor vehicle stopped for a moment after causing an accident and then ran away. Applying the golden rule the court held that the driver had not fulfilled the requirement of the section, as he had not stopped for a reasonable period so as to enable interested persons to make necessary inquires from him about the accident at the spot of accident.

In Ramji Missar v. State of Bihar AIR 2003 P&H 135, in construing section 6 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 1958, the Supreme Court laid down that the crucial date on which the age of the offender had to be determined is not the date of offence, but the date on which the sentence is pronounced by the trial court An accused who on the date of offence was below 21 years of age but on the date on which the judgment pronounced, if he was above 21 years, he is not entitled to the benefit of the statute. This conclusion reached having regard to the object of the Act. The object of the Statute is to prevent the turning of the youthful offenders into criminals by their association with the hardened criminals of mature age within the walls of the prison. An accused below 21 years is entitled to the benefit of the Act by sending him under the supervision of the probation officer instead of jail.

In Uttar Pradesh Bhoodan Yagna Samiti v. Brij Kishore 1988 RD 363 (SC) The Supreme Court held that the expression “landless person” used in Section 14 of the ‘U.P. Bhoodan Yagna Act, 1953,which made provision for grant of land to landless persons, was limited to “landless labourers”. Landless labour is he who is engaged in agriculture but having no agricultural land.

The Court further said that “any landless person” did not include a landless businessman residing in a city. The object of the Act was to implement the Bhoodan movement, which aimed at the distribution of land to landless labourers who were vested in agriculture. A businessman, though landless cannot claim the benefit of Act.

Narrow Approach– This approach is applied when the word or phrases capable of more than one literal meaning. This allows the judge to apply the meaning which avoids the absurdity.

Broad Approach– This approach is applied when there is only one literal meaning. But applying that one literal meaning would cause an absurdity. Under this approach the court will modify the meaning to avoid the absurdity. The modification shall be keeping in mind the intention of the Parliament making the law in question.

The golden rule of statutory interpretation allows a shift from the ordinary sense of a word(s) if the overall content of the document demands it. It states that if the literal rule produces an absurdity, then the court should look for another meaning of the words to avoid that absurd result. The grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to unless that would lead to some absurdity or some repugnance or inconsistency with the rest of the instrument in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified so as to avoid the absurdity and inconsistency, but no farther.

ADVANTAGES OF GOLDEN RULE

• It allows the judge to choose the most sensible meaning where there is more than one meaning to the words in the Act or Statute.
• It respects the words of the parliament except in limited situations, the golden rule
• provides an escape route where there is a problem with using the literal meaning.
• It can also provide reasonable decisions in cases where the literal rule would lead to repugnant situations (this goes for the wider meaning) – This is present in the Re Sigsworth case in the case example, because allowing the son to benefit from his crime would have been unjust.
• A major advantage of the Golden Rule is that judge can technically change the law by changing the meaning of words in statues. They can, potentially infringing the separation of power between legal and legislature.
• Another main advantages of the Golden Rule is that drafting errors in status can be corrected immediately. This is seen in the R V Allen (1872) case where the loopholes were closed, the decision was in line with parliament’s intentions, and it gave a more just outcome.

DISADVANTAGE OF GOLDEN RULE

• There is no real guidelines as to when it can be used
• It is very limited in it is use, so it is only used on rare occasions.
• It’s not always possible to predict whether courts will use the golden rule, making it hard for lawyers and people who are advising their clients.
• What seems to be absurd to one judge may not be to another so this means a case outcome is decided upon the judge, rather than the law
• The Golden Rule won’t be help if there is no absurdity in the statute. For example, in the case of London and North Eastern Railway v. Berriman [1946] AC 278, where the widow couldn’t get compensation because the wording of the statute didn’t allow for this circumstance.

Criticism

One of the biggest criticisms against the Golden Rule of Interpretation is the very limited scope for judges to interpret. Much like the Literal Rule, the golden rule lays that first priority shall always be given to the natural meaning of the statute and judges do not hold much of discretion or freedom in analyzing the meaning of provisions.

The word “absurdity” is a vague concept and arises only in a few cases where it necessary for the court to apply the golden rule of interpretation. Golden rule suffers from the same problems which were faced by the Literal approach i.e. lack of wider contextual understanding of “meanings.” The majority of the cases contain tough scenarios where touch choices have to be made between many credible arguments, not scenarios in places where wordings of the legislation take you to obvious ambiguity.

• This infringes the separation of power among the wings of the government that is between judiciary and legislature.
• Here judges can technically change the law by changing the meaning of the words in the statute.
• This method can be used only when there is an absurdity in the statute.

Only when some kind of absurdity or repugnancy is caused in pursuant to the literal meaning would the Judges be allowed to alter the natural meaning of the Statute. Absurdity is a term no less vague or ambiguous than the plain meaning of any statutory provision.

Placing reliance on the applicability of the rule entirely upon vague, undefined and subjective concept defeats the purpose of the rule as its ultimate applicability depends on the social and political views of the judge. It is how the judge perceives the word absurdity upon which the entire applicability of the rule is depended.

CONCLUSION

The usage of the Golden rule in today’s scenarios is that the court uses a tool to achieve the desired results. In the rare cases where the disputed wordings are either narrow or accurate and too plain to be held by the judges to be not accurate but make them applicable would and too plain to be held by the judges to be not accurate but make them applicable would original meaningful sense, hold that in making them applicable on the situations of the said case that would result in a ‘vague’ to which the law-making body cannot be made accountable, and, adducing the ‘golden rule,’ will work out an implied exception.

1. It is the duty of the Court to give effect to the meaning of an Act when the meaning can be fairly gathered from the words used, that is to say, if one construction would lead to an absurdity while another will give effect to what common sense would show, as obviously intended, the construction which would defeat the ends of the Act must be rejected even if the same words used in the same section, and even the same sentence, have to be construed differently. Indeed, the law goes so far as to require the courts sometimes even to modify the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words, if by doing so absurdity and inconsistency can be avoided.
2. The Court should not be astute to defeat the provision of the Act whose meaning is, on the face of it, reasonably plain. Of course, this does not mean that an Act or any part of it can be recast. It must be possible to spell the meaning contended for, out of the words actually used
3. Unless the words are without meaning or absurd, it would be safe to give words their natural meaning because the framer is presumed to use the language which conveys the intention and it would not be in accord with any sound principle of construction to refuse to give effect to the provisions of a statute on the very elusive ground that to give them their ordinary meaning leads to consequences which are not in accord with the notions of propriety or justice entertained by the Court.