Purpose

This independent blog collects news about projects or achievements in regulatory reform / better regulation. It is edited by Charles H. Montin. All opinions expressed are given on a personal basis.
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20 July 2012

Good legal drafting for Smart Regulation

When thinking about building a Smart Regulation capacity, we do not always think about the potential of more expert legislative drafting, which is concerned primarily with the formal quality (clarity, consistency, formatting, references, etc.) as we are focusing mostly on the impacts of the draft and other issues such as its implementation or evaluation. We take it for granted that the lawyers will know how to implement policy with the appropriate legal instruments, once the right decisions will have been taken and the impacts measured.
But a comprehensive approach to the quality of legislation must not neglect this vital phase of actually drafting the texts, with the end-user in mind.
Your blogger was asked to examine the contribution of legistics to better regulation for the first number of the International Journal of Legislative Drafting and Law Reform. The result is an article which examines how the issue has been tackled in France, and assess the results from a Better Regulation point of view. Access to the article is by subscription on the publication's website. Alternatively, interested experts can acces a short version "Legistics and the quality of legislation in France." In summary, the article takes the view that France, like other countries belonging the the "continental law" sphere, needs to accommodate updated standards of quality addressing a wider range of societal demands, chiefly making the body of law easier to access, to understand and to apply, and supporting higher economic performance. This has happened to a certain extent in France, and the article seeks to appraise the French model and its results against international best practice as expressed by the "Better Regulation" principles promoted by OECD. It concludes that much progress has been made but further improvements are necessary if the system is to guarantee economic accountability on a par with legal security, and remain an "attractive" model.
You may also want to note that the International Journal will be holding its first annual conference in London on 4-5 September.

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