Misconceptions on legislative quality: an enlightened approach to the drafting of legislation

The chapter summarises traditional teachings in legislative drafting, and identifies five misconceptions. Misconception 1: drafting conventions always lead to quality. But the phronetic nature of drafting prevents nomoteleia of drafting conventions. Misconception 2: Legislative quality rests in a vacuum. But the interconnectivity between policy, law, and legislative expression render their interdependence profound and critical. Misconception 3: legislative quality is undefinable. But effectiveness is a prominent definition of legislative quality. Misconception 4: effectiveness always leads to legislative quality. But legislation suffers from inherent limits: its interconnection and reliance to regulation, the limits of legislation as written communication, and the intrinsic aversion of users to legislative texts. Misconception 5: in view of the unsurpassable limits of legislative texts, legislative quality should not be pursued further. But there is hope ahead, such as the layered structure of legislative texts, the use of image in legislative texts, and the restructuring of the statute book as a whole

Emerging trends of legislation in Europe

This book provides a practical handbook for legislation. Written by a team of experts, practitioners and scholars, it invites national institutions to apply its teachings in the context of their own drafting manuals and laws

Quality of Legislation: Focus on Smart EU and post-Smart Transposition

This article explores legislative quality under the Smart Regulation framework, and critically assesses the further challenges of transposition after Smart. The prism through which the topic is viewed is solely legislative drafting, also ex-pressed in civil law jurisdictions as law-making techniques. The standard by which EU legislation and national transposition measures are to be quality assessed is effectiveness of EU and national legislation defined as their ability to produce the desired regulatory results