4.7 Exceptional Construction

The craft: the departure cases — the ordinary rules' suspension: (i) the clear-absurdity departure (the reading's rejection where the result's intolerable — the golden rule's strong form); (ii) the drafting-error correction (the "scrivener's error" (the obvious slip corrected — the intended text restored)); (iii) the reading-down and reading-in (the provision's narrowing to save the validity (the constitutionality's preservation) or the words' addition (the gap's constitutional fill — the rare-and-contested craft)); (iv) the rectification-in-interpretation (the names'-and-numbers' obvious errors; the wrong-reference correction); the discipline: the exceptional's honesty (the court's transparency — the departure acknowledged, the reason given); the dangers: the unrestrained "correction" as the judicial rewriting (the separation-of-powers boundary — the exceptional's exceptionalism). Exam Focus Long questions (the unit is the constructions' bank): (i) Any three constructions (the liberal-beneficial-restrictive trio's craft); (ii) The harmonious construction + the collision-avoidance (the wide craft); (iii) The purposive vs progressive pair (the modern essay). Short questions: the lenity principle; the specialia-generalibus; the reading-down; the scrivener's error. Trick areas: (i) The BENEFICIAL construction is the protective-statute-specific; the LIBERAL is the general generosity — the pair's distinction; (ii) The restrictive construction's home field: the PENAL statutes + the EXCEPTIONS + the JURISDICTIONS — the three-subject list; (iii) The purposive cannot OVERRULE the clear text (the purpose's limit) — the priority's craft; (iv) The reading-IN is more contested than…