Section 129 Evidence Act 2011
Section 129 Evidence Act 2011 is titled ‘Evidence as to interpretation of documents‘. It is under Part VIII (EXCLUSION OF ORAL BY DOCUMENTAHV EVIDENCE) of the Act. It states as follows:
(1) Evidence may be given to show the meaning of illegible or not commonly intelligible characters of foreign, obsolete, technical, local and provincial expressions, of abbreviations and words used in a peculiar sense.
(2) Evidence may not be given to show that common words, the meaning of which is plain, and which do not appear from the context to have been used in a peculiar sense, were in fact so used.
(3) If the words of a document are so defective or ambiguous as to be unmeaning, no evidence can be given to show what the author of the document intended to say.
(4) In order to ascertain the relationship of the words of a document to facts, every fact may be proved to which it refers, or may probably have been intended to refer, or which identifies any person or thing mentioned in it; and such facts are hereafter in this section called the circumstances of the case.
(5) If the words of a document have a proper legal meaning, and also a less proper meaning, they must be deemed to have their proper legal meaning, unless such a construction would be unmeaning in reference to the circumstances of the case, in which case they may be interpreted according to their less proper meaning.
(6) If the document has one distinct meaning in reference to the circumstances of the case, it must be construed accordingly, and evidence to show that the author intended to express some other meaning is not admissible.
(7) If the document applies in part but not with accuracy or not completely to the circumstances of the case, the court may draw inferences from those circumstances as to the meaning of the document whether there are more than one or only one thing or person to whom or to which the inaccurate description may equally well apply; and in such cases no evidence can be given of statements made by the author of the document as to his intentions in reference to the matter to which the document relates, though evidence may be given as to his circumstances, and as to his habitual use of language or names for particular persons or things.
(8) If the language of the document, though plain in itself, applies equally well to more objects than one, evidence may be given both of the circumstances of the case and of statements made by any party to the document as to his intentions in reference to the matter to which the document relates.
(9) If the document is of such a nature that the court will presume that it was executed with any other than its apparent intention, evidence may be given to show that it was in fact executed with its apparent intention.