§ 8.01-191.Construction of article.

Section 8.01-191 tells courts how to read the rest of Article 17. It declares the article remedial, meaning its purpose is corrective and protective rather than a narrow grant to be read tightly against the people trying to use it. That purpose, spelled out in the statute itself, is to afford relief from the uncertainty and insecurity attendant upon controversies over legal rights.

The section highlights a specific problem declaratory judgment solves: before this remedy existed, a party unsure of their rights sometimes had to invade the rights asserted by another — breach a contract, ignore an ordinance, act as though a disputed title were valid — just to trigger an ordinary lawsuit that would finally test the question. Article 17 lets a party get an answer without taking that risk first.

Section 8.01-191 closes by directing that the article be liberally interpreted and administered, with a view to making the courts more serviceable to the people. That instruction shapes how every other section in this article should be read: expansively, in favor of allowing declaratory relief, rather than as a narrow exception to ordinary litigation.