Contracts

It was well established that as part of the interpretation exercise a court could read words into a document which were not already there. It could and would, however, only do so in a case in which it was satisfied that it was necessary to do so in order to reflect what it was satisfied had been its true meaning. That was: “The meaning which the instrument would convey to a reasonable person having all the background knowledge which would be reasonably available to the audience to whom the instrument is addressed”. However, it was not any part of the court’s interpretative exercise to improve upon the instrument that it was called upon to construe.