§ 1.002.Construction of Code

One sentence importing an entire body of interpretive rules.

The Code Construction Act applies to the construction of each provision in this code, except as otherwise expressly provided by this code.

That Act is where a great deal of this code’s vocabulary is defined. It supplies default definitions — "person", "written", "signed", "includes" — and rules about how time is computed, how a repeal affects a prior right, and what happens when provisions conflict.

So a term used here without definition is not undefined. A reader who cannot find a definition in this code should look to the Act before concluding the word carries only its ordinary meaning.

Several provisions in this code rely on that route explicitly. The racketeering chapter defines "person" by reference to the Act rather than restating it, which works only because this section is here.

The Act also supplies the presumptions a court applies to an ambiguous statute — that compliance with the constitutions is intended, that the entire statute is intended to be effective, that a just and reasonable result is intended, and that public rather than private interest is favoured.

The exception clause is narrow: "except as otherwise expressly provided by this code". A displacement must be express, so a provision that merely reads differently does not displace the Act’s rule.

Read with the purpose section, the two set the interpretive frame. One says the code was not meant to change the law; this one says how its words are to be construed.