This word is used in contradistinction to the common law.
Statutes acquire their force from the time of their passage unless otherwise provided.
Private statutes may be rendered public by being so declared by the legislature. Declaratory or remedial. A declaratory statute is one which is passed in order to put an end to a doubt as to what the common law is, and which declares what it is, and has ever been. Remedial statutes are those which are made to supply such defects, and abridge such superfluities in the common law as may have been discovered. The term remedial statute is also applied to those acts which give the party injured a remedy, and in some respects those statutes are penal.