in pari materia

Statutes are in pari materia when they deal with the same person, thing or class of things, or have the same purpose. They are then construed together as one system, so that a word used in one may be understood in the sense it bears in another, and an earlier Act may help explain an ambiguity in a later one. Examples are a principal Act and its amending Acts, or Acts forming part of the same scheme of legislation.

The rule is an external aid to interpretation and must be used with care. If the two statutes have different objects, the same word may carry different meanings, and the definition in one cannot simply be imported into the other. The phrase is also used to describe a provision copied from another statute, such as an Indian section modelled on an English one, when the foreign decisions on it are relied on.

Example

Since the two rent control Acts were in pari materia, the court relied on decisions under the earlier Act to construe “bona fide requirement” in the later one.

See also

external aids to interpretation · harmonious construction · internal aids to interpretation

Read more in the study notes

• External aids II: dictionaries, translations, statutes in pari materia, contemporanea expositio (Interpretation of Statutes and Principles of Legislation)
• Death, marriage and insolvency of parties; withdrawal and compromise of suits (Civil Procedure Code and Limitation Act)
• Suits by or against firms, minors and persons of unsound mind, indigent persons, and interpleader suits (Civil Procedure Code and Limitation Act)
• Public interest litigation petition (Drafting, Pleading and Conveyance)
• The federal base of taxing power: distribution of taxing powers under the Constitution (Law of Taxation)
• Law of treaties: conclusion, reservations, validity and termination (Public International Law)