Judicial interpretation
From Judgepedia
plain meaning of the law; at other times, some judges are said to "legislate from the bench". These judicial behaviors are sometimes referred to as judicial activism, which is contrasted to judicial restraint as a way of interpreting both what laws say and how much freedom judges have to create new laws from the bench.
Types of interpretation
In addition to the contrast between judicial activism and judicial restraint, other theories of judicial interpretation include:
Textualism vs. constructionism
The strict constructionist says that the literal meaning of a law is the best way to interpret that law; the law should be understand to mean what it says, on its face, that it means. An example of this is when Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black said that the First Amendment's command that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech" meant exactly that, "no law."
This approach has the virtue of simplicity. Critics say it can also lead to problems. Parts of a law, in isolation, can be rigid. Reading sentences of the Constitution in isolation, in the name of a "strict construction", can leave questions about whether the meaning of the text at issue can be fully understood without considering the context (the legal, political and social environment) in which the law was written. Although Justice Black would have said that "no law" can be passed that abridges the freedom of speech, he would not have said that treasonous speech should be protected, or that shouting "fire!" in a crowded theater is an act of speech that should be protected under the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of freedom of speech.
