Unit 7: An Introduction of Interpretation Law of Nepal
7.1 Interpretation of Statute Act 2010 B.S.
Nepal’s general interpretation statute — the short Act (the 1953/54-era instrument, one of the early statutes of the post-1951 legal modernisation) that supplies the default rules for every Nepal Act unless excluded. Its core machinery:
- The definitions’ bank — the general terms’ settled meanings (the “person” including the juristic; the gender’s inclusiveness; the singular-and-plural; the “Government” meaning; the gazetted dates’ computation).
- The commencement rule — the Act’s operation from its commencement clause’s date (the Gazette publication’s role).
- The repeal’s effects — the repealed Act’s proceedings-and-rights savings (the accrued-and-pending faces).
- The references’ rules — the citations, the amendments, the repeals-and-savings read per the standard forms.
- The measurement-and-time rules — the distance, the age, the time computation (the standard clauses).
The Act’s character: Nepal’s General Clauses Act cousin (the Indian 1897 Act and the UK Interpretation Act 1978 as the syllabus’s own comparators) — the interpretive infrastructure that the courts apply daily, usually without notice.
7.2 Recent Trends on Interpretation of Statutes
- The purposive-and-liberal dominance: the Supreme Court’s modern style — the rights’ generous reading, the purposive constitutional interpretation (the progressive school of U5.1.4), the proportionality’s arrival (the limitations’ structured review).
- The constitutionalisation: the interpretation’s constitutional frame — the rights-compatible reading (the presumption of U6.2 working with the harmonious method), the directive principles’ interpretive aid (U5.2’s faces).
- The treaty-consistent reading: the Treaty Act 2047’s primacy plus the U6.5 presumption — the Nepali courts’ growing treaty consultation (the human rights instruments’ citation culture — Human Rights Law’s cases as the specimens).
- The precedential consolidation: the binding-precedent discipline (Art 128’s world) and the bench’s structure — the Constitutional Bench’s centralised interpretation of the constitutional questions.
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