Learn English – What does ‘provision’ exactly mean in a legal document

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Now I'm asked to look at a legal document(here) and answer the question that which provisions apply to a certain case. However, I don't know what the word 'provision' means in a legal context. (English is my second language and I hardly read law-related material at all.) So I looked up the meaning of provision and according to Tanslegal it means:

a statement in a contract or a law that a specific thing must happen or be done

That's still vague to me. First, for the document I'm reading it seems to me more like:

a statement in a contract or a law that a specific thing must not happen or be done

The document I'm looking at have some sections, and some of the sections are talking about formal sections.

For example, section 8 of the document says

8.(1)

A person must not, in the course of a commercial activity, install or
cause to be in- stalled a computer program on any other per- son’s
computer system or, having so installed or caused to be installed a
computer program, cause an electronic message to be sent from that
computer system, unless…

This should be a provision, which I understand. However, section 9 is like this:

9.

It is prohibited to aid, induce, procure or cause to be procured the
doing of any act contrary to any of sections 6 to 8.

Is the text under section 9 also a provision since it's about something that must not happen?

Section 10 goes on to explain some terms used in section 6 to 8. So these aren't provisions, right?

Best Answer

It's both. The definition you found could be amended to

a statement in a contract or a law that a specific thing must happen or be done, or not happen or not be done.

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