Lawmaking is an essential attribute of a state. Laws differ from one country to another, and compliance with different legal rules may create problems. Uniformity of laws is an end in itself, and its value lies in its practical benefits. Interest in the quality of legislative instruments is a major concern, especially as regards the effectiveness of the national legislation.

The aim of this article is to explore whether drafting conventions, templates and legislative precedents contradict or complement the drafter’s style and if they complement the drafter’s style, the various ways in which the use of these tools achieves it.

The hypothesis of this paper is that clarity, precision and unambiguity are the essential tools for expressing retrospective intent, which is a pre-requisite for quality and validity of retrospective legislation. The main objective of this work is to show that retrospective laws are valid, if the retrospective intent is expressed in clear, precise and unambiguous words within the statute. The term retrospectivity is used broadly to describe any legislation or decision affecting pre-enacting conduct. It encompasses statutes affecting the pre-enactment events, administrative regulations or decisions which look back in time and judicial decisions that overturn prior decisions. All these areas cannot be covered in this limited piece of work. Thus, the emphasis in this work will be put on retrospectivity of statutes at the drafting stage. Although it may be referred to generally, retrospective delegated legislation is outside the scope of this work. Particular attention will be directed towards the importance of clarity, precision and unambiguity in attaining quality and validity of retrospective legislation.

Every government needs legislation to cover all issues transposing obligations in the manner required by the initiator and with respect to constitutional obligations and rules that provide for the conduct of society.
Every legislative drafter should strive to achieve a law that is people oriented. The idea is to serve by extending legislative benefits to them in the best possible manner. Drafting is not a simple transcription or translation of administrative or executive guidelines, but is the command of legislative intent. It is a mixture of vision, mission and design, which brings out a workable proposition considering the background of a problem and foreseeing the ramifications of the legislative action. Drafting always supposes precision, brevity and clarity. Drafting should be compared to a focus of technical knowledge of a special kind that put together minds to produce a unity of thought enunciated as a command.
In order to produce quality legislation, drafters need undergraduate law training, followed by specialised postgraduate training in legislative studies, combined with hands on experience in a drafting office with an experienced senior drafter.

This report is the result of the collective work of 26 Rwandan civil servants from a number of ministries, who set out to offer the Ministry of Justice a report on legislative drafting in Rwanda. The work was undertaken under the umbrella of the Diploma in Legislative Drafting offered by the Institute for Legal Professional Development (ILPD) in Nyanza under the rectorship of Prof. Nick Johnson. The authors have used their experience of practising drafting in Rwanda, but have contributed to the report in their personal capacity: their views are personal and do not reflect those of the Government of Rwanda.
My only contribution was the identification of topics, which follows the well-established structure of manuals and textbooks in drafting; the division of the report into two parts: Part 1 on the legislative process and Part 2 on drafting techniques; and the methodology of each individual entry to our report: what is current Rwandan practice, what are international standards, what is the future of Rwanda, and a short bibliography to allow the readers and users of the report to read further, if needed.
The strength of this report lies both in the methodology used and in the content offered. The breakdown of topics, their prioritization and their sequence allow the reader to acquire a holistic view on how legislation is drafted in Rwanda, but there is nothing to prevent its use in the context of surveys on legislative drafting and legislative quality in other jurisdictions. The content offers a unique insight into the legislative efforts of a jurisdiction in transition from civil to common law: both styles are assessed without prejudice, thus offering a unique fertile ground for critical assessment and practical impact analysis.
June 2013

Considering that every piece of legislation is subject to legal interpretation, its practicability depends highly on successful interpretation. In any legislation drafted in more than one language, divergence in meanings of versions is not only possible, but inevitable. It is not a simple task to draft in a way so that contexts are translated and included in all different language versions so that it becomes one meaningful legislation. While relying on one version only in the course of interpreting a piece of legislation may sound a lot easier, there could be ambiguous passages which may be clarified by consulting other versions. The existence of discrepancies between the versions of legislation is neither a smooth sail in multilingual environment.

The hypothesis of this article is that valid administrative decisions from local authorities are guaranteed via clear and precise enabling clauses in the primary legislation. The article argues that the style of drafting local authorities’ legislations influences decisions taken by local authorities. First, legislations need to be drafted in a style that clearly and precisely spells out the limits of powers of the local authorities in order to provide sufficient guidance to local authorities’ administrators to act lawfully. In attempting to exercise implied powers conferred by the imprecise enabling legislation, however, local authorities tend to go beyond intended legal powers and as a result take unreasonable, arbitrary and invalid decisions. More so, drafters rarely provide sufficient guidance about which considerations are properly relevant to the exercise of discretion and which are not. Secondly, obscure, wide and ambiguous enabling clauses in the primary legislations are substantial causes of courts’ misinterpretation of legislation as understanding the limits of the powers of the local authorities is a challenge. On the other hand, it is questionable whether the whole range of activities performed by a local authority by invoking implied powers, while exercising discretion, under the umbrella of doing anything that is calculated to facilitate or is conducive to or incidental to the discharge of any of its functions can be regarded as lawful. This article attempts to respond to that question. Although the principle of ultra vires requires the strict observance of the limits of the powers conferred in legislation, local authorities tend to invoke widely drafted provisions to perform activities that are said to be incidental to the express powers of which courts may declare invalid.

The aim of this study is to prove that the use of section headings in legislation contributes to achieve effectiveness by helping readers of legislation find what they need to know faster, and understand it more easily. To prove the hypothesis, this study uses a comparative methodology by applying Horn’s criteria: Primary Users and Official Interpreters; Assistance for Primary Users; and Assistance for Official Interpreters. The study applies those criteria to Australian and Rwandan jurisdictions.

This study aims to demonstrate that the legislative reform of Private International Law is one of the most complex subjects to be understood in terms of the Law in Brazil. With this objective, the point of reference of this study will be the controversy, which involves willingness as a connecting element, and is also known as the controversy around Article 9 of LINDB. By analyzing willingness as a connecting element within Brazilian legislation, a general panorama of the aforementioned Law is developed, as well as the debate of a doctrine nature about willingness as a connecting element and its insertion in the legal system in effect in Brazil. Finally, the difficulties encountered considering Brazil’s position towards international treaties and conventions, as well as the many attempts to reform Private International Law legislation will be analyzed.

The Constitutional Amendment 45/2004 emphasized the need for efficiency in both administrative and judicial judgments in Brazil and introduced the right of a trial within reasonable time (Art. 5, item LXXVIII) in the 1988 Federal Constitution. Although more judges are needed to comply with this constitutional requirement, no statutory regulation was enacted to date to conform to it, particularly to allow judges to delegate administrative and enforcement functions to civil servants. However, given that fundamental rights have immediate applicability, the principle of efficiency must be implemented regardless of further regulation. In Portugal, judges are not required to order executive acts, which are conferred to an enforcement agent. A similar system should be adopted in Brazil, leaving judges time for decision-making. An efficient judicial service is essential to strengthen the image of the Judiciary and depends on this type of reforms.

Most legislation proceeds by way of amending existing legislation. It is difficult for the amending legislation to set out both the changes being made to the law as well as what the law will be after the changes. Various techniques for achieving clarity in amending legislation are analysed. The article concludes that the Keeling schedule is a useful tool for this purpose.

This article develops a regulatory theory of law reform for common law jurisdictions drawing on a model of responsive regulation and applies it to a case study in Privacy and the Media with particular reference to law reform initiatives in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.

Both the Rome Convention and its successor the Rome I Regulation contain much discussed provisions on applicable law in the case of absence of a choice of law. Both instruments contain so called ‘exception clauses’ which refer to a closer connection of the contract with one state to the law of another state resulting from the general presumptions. The Netherlands is the frontrunner with a highly restrictive interpretation of the exception clauses. The applicable law to a transnational dispute might not always be the law of the competent court, although courts tend to prefer their own national law with which they are familiar. This year it has been exactly 20 years since the first revolutionary ruling on the subject by the Dutch Supreme Court, the so called Balenpers case. With the recent transition of the Convention into the Regulation, it is useful to analyse these connecting factors and review them in the context of the new Regulation. The Dutch courts have developed numerous connecting factors over the years. The article analyses Dutch case law on international contracts of carriage and international employment contracts from the implementation of the Rome Convention to date.