Semantics and Context in Legal Interpretation: Validation Through Precedence Versus Clarity of Text

Abstract

Guidelines for legislative interpretation, whether statutory or constitutional, ought, by definition, to ground subsequent legislative maneuvers. While certain power could be delegated to local and regional administrations, the generic operation of interpretation should feasibly be determined across states in order to ensure procedural justice: that which ought to frame judgments must be said clearly, so that whatever ought to remain fluid on a communal level could retain its liberty. However, the principles of such interpretation in the United States Supreme Court do not obviate ambiguity. Attempts at methodological clarification on the theoretical and practical level have generally fallen into two categories: a practical and holistically historical approach in framing and determining legal questions on the one hand, or a textual and more exclusively literal approach that focuses on linguistic nuances of a statutory or constitutional rule on the other hand. This essay seeks to establish, through theoretical analysis and case studies, the possibility of an operative proposal regarding how the Supreme Court might more effectively and reasonably provide answers to difficult questions and rulings.