Reading in

Reading in is a remedy Canadian courts may use when legislation is unconstitutional because it is underinclusive, meaning it wrongly omits a group or circumstance. Rather than striking down the entire provision, the court adds the missing content by implication so the law conforms to the Constitution, most often the Charter's equality guarantee.

Reading in respects the legislature's objective by preserving the law while curing the constitutional defect, and courts use it only where the addition is consistent with the legislative scheme and the legislature would plainly have preferred the extended law to no law at all. It sits alongside other constitutional remedies such as striking down, severance, and reading down (interpreting a broad provision narrowly to keep it valid), and researchers should keep reading in and reading down distinct.