Interpretation of Grade 12 Qualifications- Dickson Jere

Interpretation of Grade 12 Qualifications

By Dickson Jere

As lawyers, we use what we call “Canons of interpretation” to understand what the law is or ought to be. There are various canons we apply when faced with an interpretation of a law.

The first and most used canon is called “literal interpretation” which simply means that you take the way the law reads without reading much into it. For example, minimum Grade 12 qualifications means just that – that is to say you must have full Grade 12 certificate to stand or its equivalent. What is equivalent is this case is the other qualifications similar to Grade 12. This may be Form 5 certificate of Zimbabwe or Matriculation Certificate of South Africa. These are equivalent to our Grade 12. Anything higher, as ConCourt rightly stated, is not equivalent to Grade 12. Literal interpretation

You see, to enter ZIALE, you need to have LLB or Law Degree. But now ZIALE management insists that you first produce your Grade 12 before they look at your degree. Hence a good number of law degree holders have been chased from ZIALE. Show your minimum Qualifications first!

If the literal interpretation produces absurd results, you move to the next canon of interpretation. We call this “mischief rule” which seeks to go into the mind of parliamentarians when they passed the law. In this case, what was the mischief parliament intended to resolve. If the issue was that a Grade 12 would normally read and write English, then surely the older of PhD without Grade 12 qualifies to stand as MP. But then how did he obtain that PhD without the minimum entry qualifications? But then if that was the intention of Parliament – the drafting of the constitution would have captured that by inserting a clause that “Grade 12 Certificate or equivalent or any higher qualifications.” But the constitution did not include the “higher qualifications” than Grade 12.

Anyway, the issue is between literal interpretation Vs mischief rule. ConCourt went for the literal interpretation. But then we are advised when interpreting the constitution to always apply the purposive interpretation, which simply means understanding the purpose behind the law. For now, Concourt has given us the literal interpretation which we need to live with unless someone goes back to court under the “slip rule” and have this clarified!
Such is law. That is why lawyers do not agree and end up in court to have a neutral arbiter have a final say!