1.1 Meaning of Interpretation of Statutes

The statute: the legislature's enacted law — the written will of the law-making body (the Acts, the codes, the ordinances, the delegated legislation's hierarchy). Interpretation defined: the process by which the courts ascertain the meaning of the statutory language — the words' sense in their context (the text's meaning discovered); construction distinguished: the legally operative effect of that meaning — the drawing of consequences (the meaning → the legal result). The classic gloss: interpretation = the collection of the legislature's intention; construction = the building upon it — though the two terms are used loosely interchangeably. The necessity's question (why interpret?): (i) the language's ambiguity (the words' multiple senses); (ii) the text's silence (the unforeseen situations — the gap); (iii) the conflict (the provisions' collision — the harmonising need); (iv) the change (the words' meaning-in-time — the old text, the new world); (v) the drafting's errors (the slips, the inconsistencies); (vi) the specialist-vs-ordinary sense (the technical terms' question). The courts' interpretive role (the constitutional frame): the judiciary as the law's interpreter (the separation of powers' discipline: the court neither legislates nor executes — the interpretation as the judge's proper creativity — the "judicial law-making's" honest debate).