(d) Appellate courts in a case like this, where there is room for legitimate judicial difference, should refrain from interfering unless it is considered that the decision reached was based on the application of wrong principles or the case is clearly wrongly decided. Decision of court Appeal dismissed. 4.8 STATUTORY INTERPRETATION: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CASE LAW AND LEGISLATION 4.8.1 Introduction The discussion of George Mitchell (Chesterhall) Ltd v finney Lock Seeds (1985) has indicated what happens when a problem about the meaning of a statutory provision goes before a court. In this section, attention will be given to statutory interpretation in court. The courts and tribunals have, as one of their most important tasks, the application of legislative rules to various fact situations. They must decide whether these legislative rules apply to given situations. Already in this text there have been several illustrations of words not meaning what they appear to mean. Despite the supposed certainty of statutory rules, rules in ‘fixed verbal form’. Words can change over time, and courts will disagree over the meaning of words. Choices of meaning, not perceived by the drafters, may lie latent in the words and are drawn out in court in a manner defeating intention, narrowing, extending or making meaningless the ambit of the rule. Many people need to apply statutory rules, often this application will be purely routine but sometimes doubts will arise. Such doubts may, or may not, reach court. How do judges set about deciding the meaning of words? Reference has already been made to the three rules of statutory interpretation. The literal, the mischief and the golden rules (see Figure 3.2, above, in the introduction to Chapter 3). These rules it should be remembered are rules of practice not rules of law. Do judges really use the rules of statutory interpretation? If so, which rule do they use first? Judges rarely, if ever, volunteer the information that they are now applying a certain rule of interpretation. Often, judges look to see if there can be a literal meaning to the words used in the disputed statutory rule. However, there is no rule that states that they must use the literal rule first. Holland and Webb (1994) quite correctly assert that interpretation is more a question of judicial style than the use of interpretational rules. Indeed, should a student attempt to use the rules of statutory interpretation as a guide in the interpretation of a statutory word or phrase, the uselessness of the rules as an interpretational tool becomes immediately apparent. However, as a justificatory label they may have a function. As students gain experience in reading judgments they notice vast differences in judicial styles. Some judgments seem to be based on a blow by blow analysis of precedents and earlier usage of words, others seem based on tenuous common sense rationales. Decisions based on the external context of the statute will be identified. This covers situations where judicial decision making appears to be based on issues of