{"product_id":"commonwealth-legislative-drafting-manual-9781849291699","title":"Commonwealth Legislative Drafting Manual","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1976, recognising that there was a shortage of trained legislative drafters in the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth Secretariat first published a legislative drafting manual aimed at informing those practitioners with little or no previous experience in the skill, and assisting those with some experience who had never considered why drafting needed to be undertaken in a particular way.  That aim remains, but more than 40 years later there have been important changes in the way legislation is drafted. These mainly concern the perceived need to make it more accessible to those to be affected by it, in particular by the use of plain language and sentence structures that relate more closely to those used in formal nonlegislative documents.  In the light of these and other changes, the Commonwealth Legislative Drafting Manual has been completely rewritten, and it now guides the practitioner step by step through the various things he or she needs to know. It also contains a series of appendices relating to the procedure for the preparation of legislation, the contents of drafting instructions, and some hints to the beginner on the best approaches to the task.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eForeword  Preface  Acknowledgements  1.  What is Legislation and why is it Drafted the Way it is?  1.1 What is legislation?  1.2 How is legislation created?  1.3 Why is legislation drafted in the way it is?  Note  2.  The Role of Legislative Counsel  2.1 Analysis and understanding of what the policy-makers require  2.2 Effective communication of the intentions of the policy-makers  2.3 Specific attributes of effective communication  2.4 Constraints on legislative counsel   3.  Background Legislation  3.1 The Constitution  3.2 The Anterpretation Act Note  4.  The Basic Elements of a Legislative Sentence 4.1 Legal subject  4.2 Legal action  4.3 Context  4.4 Prominence for the legal subject  4.5 Prominence for the legal action   5.  Modern Commonwealth Conventions in Legislative Drafting  5.1 The need for consistency and conciseness  5.2 Who is affected by the rule?  5.3 What is required or permitted?  Note   6.  Plain Language Drafting  6.1 Introduction  6.2 Reasons why legislation may fail to communicate clearly  6.3 General objective of plain English in drafting legislation  6.4 The most common specific problems that need to be addressed  6.5 The aims of plain English in legislation  Notes   7.  Structuring Legislative Drafts  7.1 Sentences  7.2 Paragraphs  7.3 Grouping provisions in an Act  7.4 Linking devices   8.  Punctuation (and Capitalisation)  8.1 Full stop  8.2 Colon  8.3 Dash  8.4 Semi-colon  8.5 Quotation marks (or inverted commas)  8.6 Brackets  8.7 Hyphen  8.8 Apostrophe  8.9 Comma   8.10 Capital letters  Note  9.  Definitions and Interpretation Provisions  9.1 Introduction  9.2 Definitions and other interpretation provisions generally  9.3 Different kinds of interpretation provisions and definitions  9.4 Writing definitions  9.5 Where particular care is needed in definitions  9.6 Where do interpretation provisions go?   10.  Words to use With Special Care (and Other Drafting Problems) 10.1 Introduction  10.2 ‘And’ and ‘Or’  10.3 ‘Which’ and ‘that’  10.4 ‘All’, ‘any’, ‘each’ and ‘every’  10.5 ‘Such’  10.6 Singular and plural  10.7 Elliptical writing (omission of words which are to be implied)  10.8 Indeterminate terms  10.9 Gender-Neutral Drafting  10.10 Expressing time  10.11 Expressing numbers   11.  The Legislative Scheme: Principles governing the type of legislation required and the ordering of its provisions  11.1 Fundamental questions to be answered  11.2 A logical structure to legislation  11.3 The logical sequence of sections within a Part   12.  Preliminary Provisions  12.1 Introductory Provisions  12.2 Preliminary provisions   13.  Final Provisions  13.1 Repeals  13.2 Transitional and savings provisions  13.3 Schedules   14.  Penal Provisions  14.1 General formulae  14.2 Different types of penalties  14.3 Parties to offences  14.4 Strict liability in criminal law  14.5 Shifting the burden of proof  14.6 General matters concerning offences and penalties  14.7 Other matters consequent on conviction  14.8 Administrative penalties   15.  Delegated Powers to Make Legislation  15.1 Why are powers to legislate delegated?  15.2 What form does subsidiary legislation take?  15.3 Questions about delegation which need to be considered by legislative counsel  15.4 How does the legislature supervise the making of subsidiary legislation?  15.5 Drafting subsidiary legislation  15.6 Typical layouts of subsidiary legislation, and executive instruments that are in some jurisdictions treated as subsidiary legislation  Note  16.  Amending Legislation  16.1 How may statutes be amended?  16.2 Direct (or textual) and indirect methods of amending  16.3 Substantive and consequential amendments  16.4 Amendment, or repeal and replacement?  16.5 Retrospectivity of amendments  16.6 Drafting textual amendments  16.7 Renumbering  16.8 Punctuation  16.9 Indentation and spacing  16.10 Style  17.  Specific Types of Application  17.1 Retrospective and retroactive provisions  17.2 Extra-territorial legislation  17.3 Binding the government   18.  Statutory Corporations  18.1 Functions of statutory corporations  18.2 Terminology traditionally used  18.3 Corporate or non-corporate?  18.4 Features of a body corporate  18.5 Establishment of a body corporate  18.6 Drafting provisions to establish a statutory corporation   19.  Licensing Legislation  19.1 Introduction  19.2 The purposes of licensing and registration  19.3 The contents of licensing legislation  19.4 Typical transitional and savings provisions relating to licences   20.  Financial Legislation  20.1 Introduction  20.2 Government accounting  20.3 Government expenditure  20.4 Government borrowing, guarantees and lending  20.5 Taxation   Appendix A:  Legislative Procedure and Preparation  Appendix B:  Guidelines for the Preparation of Cabinet Submissions  Appendix C:  Drafting Instructions  Appendix D:  Suggested Approaches to Translation of Policy  Appendix E:  Suggested Approaches to Drafting","brand":"Commonwealth Secretariat","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52091261354327,"sku":"9781849291699","price":49.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/commonwealth-legislative-drafting-manual-9781849291699","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}