BJU402 | Jurisprudence II

Jurisprudence II builds on foundational courses in the B.A.LL.B.(Hons.) programme, namely Legal Methods and Jurisprudence–I. This course focuses on the problem of interpretation in the law, which is central to the work of lawyers. However, interpretation is not a task that concerns only lawyers or legal theorists. We interpret each day, as we converse, listen to music, read novels or poems or watch movies. Many religious traditions focus on reading and interpreting sacred texts. In all of these human endeavours several controversies persist. How do we generate meaning from words or objects? By what standard do we interpret? While interpreting, is it important to stay true to the intention of the author? How do we even discern this? How do we claim that our interpretation is true? Or can there be multiple true interpretations?

One of the central tasks of lawyers and judges is to read and interpret legislative texts. In the classic formulation, judges don’t make law, but simply interpret it to give effect to the meaning embodied in the text. However, beyond the easy cases where legal text applies to facts in a relatively straightforward manner, are vast domains of uncertainty arising from ambiguity or indeterminacy of the text (and indeed, the limits of language itself), which are not susceptible to easy resolution. The conventional wisdom that judges always engage in value-neutral and objective analysis is incomplete.

Judges, like the rest of us, are human and live in societies. They are exposed to conflicting and sometimes irresolvable social, political and moral arguments. While the accepted methods of legal interpretation operate as constraints on how judges may interpret text, we need to clarify what a coherent and principled account of interpretation looks like, and how exactly these constraints apply to judges.

The problem of interpretation is fertile ground for philosophical analysis as well as a key practical lawyerly skill to understand and argue cases. Further, it is central to the judicial role, and helps us understand the role of the courts in a constitutional democracy.