Legal Maxims

By Vijay Kumar

contemporanea exposition est optima et fortissimo in lege.

It means a contemporaneous exposition is the best and most powerful in law. Maxwell refers to this maxim by saying that the best exposition of a statute or any other document is that which it has received from contemporary authority. The language of statute must be understood in the sense in which it was understood when it was enacted. Those who lived at or near the time of its enactment may reasonably be supposed to be better acquainted than their descendants, with the circumstances, to which it had relation, as well as with the sense than attached to legislative expressions.