In the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, the proper understanding of the plain meaning rule (or literal rule) of statutory interpretation remains unclear. In its most basic iteration, the rule states that, where a statute is clear and unambiguous, the words must be given their natural and ordinary signification; there is no room for interpretation. That notwithstanding, to this day, even the meaning of the rule, as opposed to its application, still sometimes sparks debate in the Commonwealth. In 2015, a judge of the Grand Court in Cayman held that once a provision in a statute is clear and unambiguous, a court does not need to read the provision in its broader context. In a subsequent case, in 2018, a court of coordinate jurisdiction disagreed. It ruled that, even where a provision appears to be clear and unambiguous, a court must still read the statute in its fuller context in order to decipher the legal meaning in that particular context. This article discusses the plain meaning rule with a view to elucidating its proper understanding while questioning the appropriateness of its continuing nomenclature especially in light of developments in recent decades.

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简单的含义规则：关于命名法的小问题等等

在英国海外领土开曼群岛，对法定解释的明义规则（或字面规则）的正确理解仍不清楚。在其最基本的迭代中，该规则规定，如果法规清晰明确，则必须赋予词语自然和普通的含义；没有解释的余地​​。尽管如此，直到今天，即使是规则的含义，而不是其应用，有时仍会在英联邦引发争论。2015 年，开曼大法院的一名法官认为，一旦法规中的条款清晰明确，法院就无需在更广泛的背景下阅读该条款。在随后的案件中，2018 年，协调管辖法院不同意。它裁定，即使某项条款看似清晰明确，法院仍必须在更全面的背景下阅读该法规，以便破译该特定背景下的法律含义。本文讨论了明义规则，以期阐明其正确理解，同时质疑其持续命名法的适当性，特别是鉴于近几十年的发展。