4.3 Restrictive Construction

The craft: the narrow reading — the words' tight confinement (the scope's minimisation); the subjects: (i) the penal statutes (the strict construction: the offence's elements narrow; the ambiguity against the state — the lenity principle); (ii) the exceptions-and-exemptions (the carve-outs' narrowness — the main provision's full operation); (iii) the derogations from the common law-and-rights (the liberty-and-property takings' narrowness); (iv) the jurisdiction- and-power provisions (the special-jurisdiction statutes' strictness — the general jurisdiction's preference); the rationale: the citizens'-and-the-accused's protection (the state's power's confinement); the limits: the absurdity's avoidance (the restrictive reading's own golden-rule boundary).