Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday inaugurated a training programme on legislative drafting organized by the Institute of Constitutional and Parliamentary Studies (ICPS) and the Parliamentary Research and Training Institute for Democracies (PRIDE) for officers of Parliament, State legislatures, various Ministries, statutory bodies and other government departments.
The programme is aimed at creating an understanding of principles and practices of legislative drafting. The drafting of legislation has a major impact on interpretation of Government policies and regulations for the welfare of society and the state.
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Parliamentary Affairs Ministers Pralhad Joshi and Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla were present on the occasion.
In his address, the Home Minister said that legislative drafting is a crucial component of democracy and lack of training about it can lead to writing of weak laws. It is very important for any democratic country that its legislative drafting skills keep getting upgraded and become more efficient with time.
He said that there are three main pillars of democracy – Legislature, Executive and Judiciary and the Constitution framers built the entire democratic governance system on these three pillars. He said that the functions of these three systems have been efficiently divided.
Shah said that the function of the legislature is to consider public welfare and problems of the people and find solutions, following legal procedures. Parliament discusses the changes being noticed across different fields globally, and accordingly formulates new laws and amends old laws to make the system more relevant.
The Home Minister said that the function of the Legislative Department is to formulate the political will of Parliament and the Union Cabinet into law. If there are grey areas left in the drafting, it would lead to encroachment in interpretation, while, if the drafting is complete and lucid, its interpretation would also be clear.
Shah said that while translating Parliament’s and people’s will into law, many things have to be taken into account, such as, the Constitution, customs, culture, historical heritage, structure of governance, society, Socio-Economic Development of the country and International Treaties.
Shah said that Legislative Drafting is not a science or an art, but it is a skill which has to be used with spirit. He said that the focus should always be on minimizing the grey areas and the law should be clear.
Shah said that during the process of converting government policies into laws, it is necessary to study the old and least controversial laws. He said that writing is a skill and punctuation marks should be used with great care and skill in legislative drafting.
Apart from this, the draftsman should also have good command over language. He said that every language has a limit and mere translation of words will not work. The spirit of the formulation has to be maintained in the translation.
The Home Minister said that capacity building is a continuous process and it is very important to upgrade the skills of the law-drafting teams in every department of Parliament and state legislatures. The world is changing very fast and there is need to keep pace with the changing world, he said.