ON THE BROAD INTERPRETATION OF LAW

Phrases such as "broad interpretation" or "extensive interpretation" are widely used among lawyers, despite being very imprecise. Aiming to clarify the notion, the essay describes and analyses its use in a number of doctrinal and judicial instances. Particularly, it studies the kind of semantic enlargement of a statute that adds in its scope items excluded by its conventional understanding in the language. Broad interpretation so understood contrasts, on one hand, with flexible or loose statutory interpretation; and, on the other hand, with legal expansion by means of non-semantic resources, such as analogy. There is also an inquiry on what could be the basic meaning of legal terms taken by default on their interpretation, both from the conceptual point of view, where the cognitive theory of prototypes cast some light, and in relation to the legal meaning those terms receive in interpretation and to the qualification of the latter as "broad".