Course Description

Public officers are often called to draft legislations. Legislations impact on the day to day of the country at large and thus officers are required to have a good understanding and articulation in drafting the legislation. The topics to be covered are:

• • The legislative process in Mauritius; the constitutional framework.
• • The role of the legislative drafter.
• • Legislative drafting techniques.
• • The role of parliamentary scrutiny committees.
• • Legislative interpretation in the context of legislative drafting.
• • Delegated legislation and legislative instruments.

Course Objectives

The objectives of the course are to enable participants to:

• • Understand the need for drafting of legislations in the parliamentary tradition.
• • Understand how legislation is drafted by using correct, clear and unambiguous expressions and appropriate English grammar.
• • Identify the key considerations and issues in preparing an appropriate legislative draft.
• • Know how to convert legislative instructions into legislative sentences for the development of legislative drafts.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• • Translate policy guidelines into an appropriate legislation.
• • Approach drafting tasks with confidence.
• • Use language that is clear and consistent in the drafting of legislations.
• • Compose simple instructions into legislative sentences that are unambiguous and free from common errors of expression;
• • Develop a piece of legislation suitable for consideration by a professional drafter and eventual enactment.