Week 8 Harmonious Construction

DOCTRINE OF HARMONIOUS CONSTRUCTION

Law is used as a tool to keep society peaceful and problem-free and to prevent conflicts between people by regulating their behavior. The laws enacted to regulate the society which is drafted by legal experts and it can very well be anticipated that many of the laws enacted will not be specific and will contain ambiguous words and expressions. Quite often we find that the judges and lawyers are busy in unfolding the meaning of such words and expressions and in resolving inconsistencies between laws. All this led to the formulation of certain rules of interpretation of statutes.
We are all aware that the government has three wings, namely, the legislature i.e.; who makes laws, the executive i.e. who execute or implement the laws and the judiciary i.e.; who interprets the meaning of laws or statutes. To avoid further ambiguities legislation has provided us with the primary rules of interpretations.


The object of interpretation of statutes is to determine the intention of the legislature conveyed expressly or impliedly in the language used. As stated by SALMOND, “by construction is meant, the process by which the court seeks to ascertain the meaning of the legislature through the medium of authoritative forms in which it is expressed.”


The doctrine of harmonious construction is one of the general principles of the interpretation of statutes. They follow the principle of a statute shall be read as a whole and should confer benefits to the people. It is the thumb rule to the interpretation of any statute.

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