Legal Dictionary of Pakistan
Quick lookup for English, Urdu, and Latin legal terms used in Pakistani jurisprudence.
Canon of construction
See canon (1)
Construction
n. 1. The act of building by combining or arranging parts or elements; the thing so built. 2. The act or process of interpreting or explaining the sense or intention of a writing (usu. a statute, opinion, or instrument). - construct (for sense 1), vb. - construe (for sense 2), ob."Construction, as applied to written law, is the art or process of discovering and expounding the meaning and intention of the authors of the law with respect to its application to a given case, where that intention is rendered doubtful either by reason of apparently conflicting provisions or directions, or by reason of the fact that the given case is not explicitly provided for in the law." Henry Campbell Black, Handbook on the Construction and Interpretation of the Laws 1 (1896).
Deconstruction
n. In critical legal studies, a method of analyzing legal principles or rules by breaking down the supporting premises to show that these premises might also advance the opposite rule or result. - Also termed trashing. - deconstructionist, adj. & n.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
See WORLD BANK.
Strict construction
See construction.
canon of construction
A rule used in construing legal instruments, esp. contracts and statutes. * Although a few states have codified the canons of construction - examples of which are contra proferentem and ejusdern generis - most jurisdictions treat the canons as mere customs not having the force of law. - Often shortened to canon. - Also termed rule of construction; rule of interpretation."A frequent criticism of the canons [of construction], made forcefully by Professor Llewellyn many years ago, is that for every canon one might bring to bear on a point there is an equal and opposite canon. This is an exaggeration; but what is true is that there is a canon to support every possible result." Richard A. Posner, The Federal Courts: Crisis and Reform 276 (1985).
construction act
A legislative directive included in a statute, intended to guide or direct a court's interpretation of the statute. 0 A construction act can, for example, be a simple statement such as "The word week' means seven consecutive days" or a broader directive such as "Words and phrases are to be read in context and construed according to the rules of grammar and common usage. Words and phrases that have acquired a technical or particular meaning, wheth
construction bond
A bond issued by a governmental entity for a building project. continued bond. See annuity bond.
construction contract
A contract setting forth the specifications for a building project's construction. ( This type of contract is usu. secured by performance and payment bonds to protect both the owner and the subcontractors."The term 'collateral contract' has no very precise meaning in the law. It is generally used as a label for a contract which is collateral, or by the side of, another contract. A great many examples of implied or constructive contracts created by the Courts are collateral in a broad sense .... [A]lthough the normal presumption is that the parties intend a written contract to be exclusive evidence of their intentions, it is always open to a party to show that in fact the writing did not exclusively represent their intentions, because of a 'collateral' contract made during the negotiations but not incorporated in the written instrument." P.S. Atiyah, An Introduction to the Law of Contract 80-81, 161 (3d ed. 1981).
construction financing
See interim financing.
construction lien
See mechanic's lien.
construction mortgage
A mortgage used to finance a construction project.
construction warranty
A warranty from the seller or building contractor of a new home that the home is free of structural, electrical, plumbing, and other defects and is fit for its intended purpose.
contemporaneous construction
An interpretation given at or near the time when a writing was prepared, usu. by one or more persons involved in its preparation. - Also termed contemporaneous and practical interpretation.
contemporaneous-constructiondoctrine
The rule that the initial interpretation of an ambiguous statute by an administrative agency or lower court is entitled to great deference if the interpretation has been used over a long period.
engineering, procurement, and construction contract
A fixed-price, schedule-intensive construction contract - typically used in the construction of single-purpose projects, such as energy plants - in which the contractor agrees to a wide variety of responsibilities, including the duties to provide for the design, engineering, procurement, and construction of the facility; to prepare start-up procedures; to conduct performance tests; to create operating manuals; and to train people to operate the facility. - Abbr. EPC contract. - Also termed turnkey contract. See SINGLE-PURPOSE PROJECT.
equitable construction
See liberal construc tion under CONSTRUCTION.
innocent-construction rule.
The doctrine that an allegedly libelous statement will be given an innocuous interpretation if the statement is either ambiguous or harmless. innocent conveyance. See CONVEYANCE.
liberal construction
An interpretation that applies a writing in light of the situation presented and that tends to effectuate the spirit and purpose of the writing. - Also termed equitable construction; loose construction; broad interpretation."Liberal construction . . . expands the meaning of the statute to embrace cases which are clearly within the spirit or reason of the law, or within the evil which it was designed to remedy, provided such an interpretation is not inconsistent with the language used. It resolves all reasonable doubts in favor of the applicability of the statute to the particular case." William M. Lile et al., Brief Making and the Use of Law Books 343 (3d ed. 1914).
literal construction
See strict construction.
loose construction
See liberal construction under CONSTRUCTION.
purposive construction
An interpretation that looks to the "evil" that the statute is trying to correct (i.e., the statute's purpose). - Also termed teleological interpretation.
reconstruction.
1. The act or process of rebuilding, re-creating, or reorganizing something <an expert in accident reconstruction>. 2. Patents. A rebuilding of a broken, worn-out, or otherwise inoperative patented article in such a way that a new article is created, resulting in an infringement <the replacement of the machine's essential parts was an infringing reconstruction rather than a permissible repair>. 3. (cap.) The process by which the Southern states that had seceded during Civil War were readmitted into the Union -, ing the years following the war (i.e., from I n65 to 1877) <the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are a lasting legacy of Reconstruction>.
rule of construction
See canon of construction under CANON (1).
statutory construction
1. The act or process of interpreting a statute. 2. Collectively, the principles developed by courts for interpreting statutes. - Also termed statutory interpretation. See CONSTRUCTION (2)."(T]here is not, and probably never can be, anything meriting the description of a coherent body of case-law on statutory interpretation as a whole as distinct from the interpretation of a particular statute." Rupert Cross, .Statutory Interpretation 39 (1976).
strict construction
1 An interpretation that considers only the literal words of a writing. - Also termed literal construction; literal interpretation. See STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISM. 2. A construction that considers words narrowly, usu. in their historical context. ( This type of construction treats statutory and contractual words with highly restrictive readings. - Also termed strict interpretation. 3. The philosophy underlying strict interpretation of statutes; STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISM."Strict construction of a statute is that which refuses to expand the law by implications or equitable considerations, but confines its operation to cases which are clearly within the letter of the statute, as well as withinits spirit or reason, not so as to defeat the manifest purpose of the Legislature, but so as to resolve all reasonable doubts against the applicability of the statute to the particular case." William M. Lile et al., Brief Making and the Use of Law Books 343 (3d ed. 1914).
strict constructionism
n. 1 of judicial construction holding that should interpret a document or statute ! ; one involving penal sanctions) according t(, literal terms, without looking to other sou t to ascertain the meaning. - Also termed strict construction literal canon literal rule textual ism-strict constructionist,n