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European Journal of Law Reform

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Issue 2, 2016 Expand all abstracts
Article

Comparative Legislative Drafting

Comparing across Legal Systems

Keywords comparative legislative drafting, comparative law, drafting process
Authors Constantin Stefanou
AbstractAuthor's information

    This article is an original, first attempt at establishing a list of comparative criteria for the comparative study of legislative drafting or aspects of legislative drafting between the two families of legal systems: common law and civil law. Because of the limited bibliography in the field of legislative drafting – let alone in comparative legislative drafting between common law and civil law systems – this article adds to existing scholarship on the field aiming to become a basis for further comparative research in legislative drafting. The list of criteria can be used on its own for different jurisdictions within the same family of legal systems, or the two lists can be used to juxtapose civil and common law experiences in legislative drafting. As this is the first time that such lists of comparative criteria in legislative drafting have been produced, it should be stressed that the lists are certainly not exhaustive. The aim of this article is to generate comparative research in legislative drafting, and so, inevitably, such comparative research might add or even subtract criteria from the lists depending on results.


Constantin Stefanou
Dr Constantin Stefanou is the director of the Sir William Dale Centre for Legislative Studies, at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (School of Advanced Study, University of London). He is also the convener of the oldest master’s programme in the field of legislative drafting (LLM in advanced legislative studies) at the IALS.
Article

Asymmetry as an Instrument of Differentiated Integration

The Case of the European Union

Keywords asymmetry, comparative and EU law, differentiated integration, crisis, economic governance
Authors Giuseppe Martinico
AbstractAuthor's information

    This article offers a reflection on asymmetry as an instrument of differentiated integration in the current phase of the EU integration process. As for the structure, this work is divided into four parts: First, I shall clarify what I mean by asymmetry as an instrument of integration relying on comparative law. This comparative exercise is particularly useful because it allows us to acknowledge the strong integrative function performed by asymmetry in contexts different from but comparable to the EU system. Second, I shall look at EU law and recall the main features of asymmetry in this particular legal system. In the third part of the article I shall look at the implications of the financial crisis, which has increased the resort to asymmetric instruments. In the last part I shall deal with some recent proposals concerning the differentiated representation of the Eurozone. The idea of differentiated integration and that of asymmetry have been extended and adapted to many different processes by scholars over the years, but to avoid misunderstandings I would like to make clear that in this work I shall analyse those forms of asymmetries that are allowed and carried out only when respect for an untouchable core of integration is guaranteed. This is crucial to conceive asymmetry as an instrument of integration.


Giuseppe Martinico
Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law, Scuola Sant’Anna, Pisa; Research Fellow, Centre for Studies on Federalism, Turin; Honorary Professor at the European law research centre, University of Henan, Kaifeng, China. Article Completed on 23 February 2016. This article is part of the project "Gobernanza económica europea y transformación constitucional”, (MINECO, DER2014-57116P).
Article

Defining ‘Better’

Investigating a New Framework to Understand Quality of Regulation

Keywords better regulation, businesses, cross-disciplinary approaches, quality of regulation, European Union
Authors Morten Jarlbæk Pedersen
AbstractAuthor's information

    Better regulation is a political and scholarly theme, which has gained in both relevance and salience throughout the last two decades or so. Regulatory quality is the epicentre of these discussions. Despite this, quality is seldom conceptualized in its own right. Thus, beyond loose principles, we are rarely aware of what we mean by ‘better’ regulation, and academic discussions hereof usually centre themselves on other topics such as meta-regulation and processes. This leaves the notion of quality hard to asses especially from a comparative perspective. In this article, a core concept of quality is suggested. This concept is founded on an acknowledgement of the importance of the legal texts when it comes to achieving regulatory aims and objectives. The concept and methodology proposed has components from both law and political science and is sought to be of relevance to scholars and practitioners alike.


Morten Jarlbæk Pedersen
Morten Jarlbæk Pedersen is a Ph.D. fellow at the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen. He has an affiliation with the Confederation of Danish Enterprise, where he has been employed for 5 years before engaging in this research project. For the purpose of the project, he was relieved of responsibilities as a consultant at the Confederation.
Article

Quo Vadis, Europa?

Loopholes in the EU Law and Difficulties in the Implementation Process

Keywords EU Law, Quality of Legislation, Loopholes, Implementation, Joint Practical Guide
Authors Markéta Whelanová
AbstractAuthor's information

    EU law is a very wide-ranging legal system that comprises thousands of legal acts. It endeavours to regulate many relationships in the Member States of the European Union and effects everyday lives both of individuals and public bodies. EU law is, however, not always positively accepted. Such non-acceptance often follows from the increasing number of cases when EU law cannot be effectively applied on the national level. Significant reason for that lies in the poor quality of EU law.
    The article describes features that cause ambiquity of EU legislation, its complexity and incompleteness, that have a very detrimental effect on the application of EU law on the national level. Further it refers to defects of form of certain pieces of EU legislation that give rise to questions concerning legal certainty and due implementation into national legal orders. The article contains many illustrative examples supporting the presented points of view and indicates ways to be taken in the future.


Markéta Whelanová
Head of the Analytical Unit of the Department for Compatibility with EU Law of the Czech Office of the Government and Deputy Director of this Department. Vice-president of the Working Commission for EU Law of the Legislation Council of the Czech Government.
Article

Enforcement of Judgments in SEE, CIS, Georgia and Mongolia

Challenges and Solutions

Keywords enforcement, bailiffs, judgments, CIS, SEE
Authors Kim O’Sullivan and Veronica Bradautanu
AbstractAuthor's information

    The article considers the results of the Assessment of enforcement systems for commercial cases, carried out by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in 2013-2014. In phase I the Assessment looked at the systems in thirteen countries, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan (“CIS+ region”); and in phase II another eight countries were reviewed: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia (“SEE region”).
    On the basis of the information gathered during the Assessment, the article compares the three forms of enforcement systems and their manifestation in the assessed regions: public (state), private and mixed (hybrid) systems. Using examples from the reviewed jurisdictions, the article discusses the benefits and downsides of each form. There is no preferred form; however, each may borrow elements from the other to result in a stronger system.
    The Assessment attempted to provide a comprehensive overview of the enforcement frameworks and practices and to pinpoint areas that might need reform and attention in order to improve the quality of the service. It looked at the following elements of enforcement: resources and framework, supervision and integrity issues, searching for assets, seizure of assets, sale of assets, speed of enforcement, cost and fees.
    The article discusses in detail the two areas of enforcement that emerged from the Assessment as most challenging: searching for debtors’ assets and sale of seized assets. Facilitated access to registers, wider use of electronic means of communications and clear process are identified among the contributors to better practice in searching for assets. Similarly, use of electronic platforms, establishing a fair price, ensuring sufficient flexibility in methods and process of sale would help improve the outcome of enforcement.
    The article further analyses another two components often overlooked by the regulatory bodies and policymakers, which permeate the enforcement system, significantly influencing the enforcement process. This refers to gathering of statistical data about the results of enforcement and its effective use; as well as efficient supervisory system over enforcement agents. The article argues that gathering data about, for example, enforcement timeline and percentage of recovered claims, and publicizing such data shall contribute to improved results. Furthermore, having an adequate complaints system will help build trust in the enforcement profession.


Kim O’Sullivan
Kim O’Sullivan is a Principal Counsel at EBRD.

Veronica Bradautanu
Veronica Bradautanu is a Consultant to the EBRD.
Article

The Quality of Regulation in the Service of Preventing Corruption

Corruption Impact Assessment (CIA)

Keywords corruption, regulation, quality, impact assessment, risk
Authors Luca Di Donato
AbstractAuthor's information

    This article describes the Corruption Impact Assessment (CIA), which is a better regulation tool suggested by the OECD, with the fundamental purpose to enhance the regulatory quality.
    The first part explains some risk-corruption factors of the legal framework. The first factor is represented by the number and complexity of rules, which can be a negative incentive to corruption as well as to produce negative consequences for the proper functioning of the market. The second factor is intrinsically linked to the ambiguity in legal drafting, which does not encourage the right interpretation of norms; therefore, there is the question of the rule of law. The third factor refers to the lack of regulation concerning pressure group participation in the regulatory process and, as a result, the lack of transparency in identifying both benefits from norms and the relevant beneficiaries.
    The second part focuses on CIA, which is considered a sub-category of traditional Regulatory Impact Assessment. It detects the factors in regulations that cause corruption, and its main potential is to prevent future corruption facilitated by bad regulation. Then, this part illustrates the implementation of CIA by Korean governments: the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) carries out the CIA, realizes its guidelines – which are based on three fundamental criteria, i.e., compliance, discretionality and transparency – and supports the application of the tool in the regulatory cycle.
    Finally, the third part discusses the results given by CIA. This new anti-corruption strategy needs that regulators take into account the results, providing for their publication to inform stakeholders; otherwise there is the possibility of the CIA use being formal, rather than substantial.


Luca Di Donato
PhD candidate at LUISS University.
Article

Responses to Climate Change in Bangladesh

An Appraisal

Keywords climate change, adaptation, Bangladesh, impacts, vulnerability
Authors Nour Mohammad
AbstractAuthor's information

    Climate change is a global problem. The impacts of climate change are worldwide. It’s not only detrimental for developing countries but also harmful for developed countries. Bangladesh is recognized as one of the countries most vulnerable to and affected by the impacts of climate change and global warming. This is due to its geographical location, geo-morphological conditions, low elevation from the sea, density of population, poverty, and remarkable dependence on nature, as well as its resources and services. As a developing country, Bangladesh is least responsible for the GHGs emission and an innocent victim of adverse impacts of climate change. This article explores the situation of climate change, its various causes and the impacts faced by the developing countries, in particular Bangladesh. The author aims to highlight how to reduce the causes of climate change for developing countries and the obligations of developed countries to combat the climate change under the existing international legal framework.


Nour Mohammad
Assistant Professor of Law, Premier University, Chittagong, Bangladesh.