Drafting Techniques

 

Legislation that is drafted well provides the general public more accessibility and certainty to protect legal rights. Beyond the substance of legal rules, the wording must be integrated within a country's overall legislative framework. For this reason, authorities producing rules must develop and master strict drafting techniques. Although several different drafting styles exist across legal systems, each can be of assistance in a variety of circumstances. Issues such as legislative planning, codification, consolidation of legislation, and training are also crucial. For this reason, drafting resources stress the need for clear, precise and consistent language and definitions, as well as consistency with existing legal and constitutional frameworks. This page offers a number of resources, manuals, and models on legal drafting skills employed worldwide.

Online Legislative Drafting Resources

List of resources, including manuals, computerized drafting tools and multilingual drafting, as compiled by the International Law Institute.

As part of the Ministry of Law and Justice, the Department of Legislative Affairs deals with draftings of laws, ordinances and other legal instruments.

Mongolia

An Asian Development Bank report concerning issues and concerns related to legislative drafting in Mongolia.

South Africa

This website contains information about the South Africa legislative drafting project, including an electronic discussion forum.

 

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