Context and Rationale
Document Actions
Legislative Process
Managing effectively and openly proposed laws and their accompanying amendments is an essential requirement for modern legislatures in carrying out their law making responsibilities. Access to these documents through a process that is open serves to legitimize the authority of the parliament and provides one of the most important means of ensuring respect for the rule of law. In order to benefit from the opportunities that an open and transparent legislative process can deliver, parliaments need to build certain technical and policy skills and capacities.
To increase legislative productivity it is necessary to streamline the internal drafting processes, establish legislative priorities and a legislative agenda, and allocate legislative drafting resources to effectively address these priorities and carry out the agenda. An effort should be made to make all documentation easily available and transparent to all relevant stakeholders in parliament and outside parliament.
Following the Cairo Conference it is proposed that the APKN – Legislative Process Group articulate its capacity building activities of the first year focusing on:
- Legislative Drafting - General principles - Linguistic aspects - Structure of legislative acts - Normative references – Modifications – Amendments - Norms over time;
- Legislative process: principles and roles - The function of legislation - Legislative drafting and the policy process - Legislative drafting and ethics - Legislative process - The role and responsibility of the legislative drafter;
- Bill summaries - Explanations of a bill’s intent - Roles of the drafter and bill clerks;
- Legislative Oversight (ensuring laws are effectively implemented) - Understanding why some agencies fail to implement effectively, and understanding the legislative options that are available.
