Article I. General Provisions · Not amended since adoption on record · Last verified July 20, 2026
When Illinois folded older statutes into this Code, lawmakers needed a way to say the recodification did not wipe out what came before. This section does that job. If a section here is the same, or substantially the same, as a prior statute, the law treats it as a continuation of that older law rather than a brand-new enactment.
The second sentence handles a related problem: other Illinois statutes that still refer to the old Act, Article, or Section by its earlier name. Under this section, that kind of reference is read as pointing to whatever part of this Code now contains the continued provision.
The section does not create new rights or duties. It preserves continuity for provisions carried forward from earlier law, so that recodifying the statute does not itself change how those provisions are read or cited elsewhere.
It heads off any argument that folding older statutes into this Code broke their continuity or required treating them as newly created law.
No. It only preserves the continuity of provisions that are the same or substantially the same as a prior statute.
Under the second sentence, that reference is read as referring to the Act, Article, or Section of this Code that now continues the older provision.
No. It applies only to provisions that are the same or substantially the same as a prior statute, not to entirely new provisions added by this Code.
It is a standard tool in recodifying statutes, so that reenacting old law as part of a new Code does not itself reset how the provisions carried forward are treated.
(Source: P.A. 82-280.)