Enhancing Legislative Drafting in the Commonwealth : A Wealth of Innovation

This edited collection brings together the critical wisdom of professional legislative drafters from a wide number of Commonwealth jurisdictions as a means of celebrating innovations in legislative drafting approaches and styles, and, perhaps more importantly, of raising awareness of the new techniques as models for change.

This book was based on a special issue of the Commonwealth Law Bulletin.

Legislation has traditionally been viewed as a text addressed to and used by lawyers and judges. But with enhanced accessibility via electronic publication of legislation in many Commonwealth jurisdictions, drafters "speak" not only to lawyers and judges, but also to untrained users. This shift of the legislative audience has changed radically the requirements for legislation and its drafting. This is crucially important as the quality of legislation within the Commonwealth remains an essential element of democracy and the rule of law.

The book aims to alert policy officers, legal officers, law reformers, and drafters of the many innovations in the drafting of legislation within the Commonwealth. And ultimately to bring to light the academic foundations of the modern approach to legislative quality, which really boils down to effectiveness of the legislative product.

This book was based on a special issue of Commonwealth Law Bulletin.