Reading words into statutes : when Homer nods

The grammatical meaning of a statutory provision may not always gel with the purpose of the statute. The court may strive to give the provision an interpretation at odds with its ordinary and natural meaning to meet the purpose of the legislation. On occasion, this may involve notionally adding words to, or substituting words in, a statutory provision. This process of “reading in” words demands that close attention be paid to the boundary between statutory construction and judicial legislation, particularly where a court is invited to carve out an exception from grammatically clear words. In Jones v Wrotham Park Settled Estates [1980] AC 74, Lord Diplock identified three pre-conditions to reading words into a statute. This article analyses the utility of those conditions within the context of the modern purposive approach to statutory interpretation and evaluates whether they remain sufficient guideposts for identifying the boundary between interpretation and legislation.