Golden Rule

A rule of statutory or legal document interpretation which allows a shift from the ordinary sense of as word(s) if the overall content of the document demands it.

A rule of statutory or legal document interpretation which allows a shift from the ordinary sense of as word(s) if the overall content of the document demands it.

In the British case Grey v. Pearson, (1857) 6 ER 60, quoted with approval in Bilawchuk v Blomberg 2000 ABQB 824,  published at canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc/2000/2000abqb824/2000abqb824.html, the golden rule was defined as follows:

"In construing all written instruments, the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words is to be adhered to, unless that would lead to some absurdity, or some repugnance or inconsistence with the rest of the instrument, in which case the grammatical and ordinary sense of the words may be modified, so as to avoid that absurdity and inconsistency, but no further."

As the British Columbia Court of Appeal wrote in 1991, Krusel v Firth, published at 58 BCLR 2d 145:

"(T)he golden rule ... is most often applied so as to resolve ambiguity in statutory language in favour of that meaning which will best achieve the intention of the legislature revealed by the statute as a whole.

"The rule requires also that words having only one meaning on a logical reading of the statute - language, that is to say, which gives rise to no ambiguity - shall nevertheless not be given that natural meaning where the result would be unjust or absurd or would contradict the plain purpose or intent of the statute, as discovered from a reading of the whole and from the character which, in the absence of contrary words, the law ascribes to statutes of that sort."