Legal interpretation in South Africa refers to the juridical understanding of South African legislation and case law, and the rules and principles used to construct its meaning for judicial purposes.[1] Broadly speaking there are three means by which and through which South African scholars and jurists construe their country's statutory law: linguistics or semantics, common law and jurisprudence. Although statutory interpretation usually involves a personal predisposition to the text, the goal is generally to "concretise" it: to harmonise text and purpose. This is the final step in the interpretative process.[2] Statutory interpretation is broadly teleological, comprising as it does first the evaluation and then the application of enacted law.