The Chamber to the Government: the Principles of Good Legislative Drafting Must Be Followed

The Chamber reminds the government that the principles of good legislative drafting are very important in a democratic country because they facilitate achieving a more open, transparent and knowledge-based governance.

“In our opinion, legislative drafting has improved with each year, but there are still too many cases where an important amendment of a law does not take into consideration the principles of good legislative drafting,” says Mait Palts, Director General of the Chamber in the letter sent to the Prime Minister. “The Chamber considers it highly important that all the ministries and the Government would follow the principles agreed for the legislative drafting process as a whole while dealing with any important topic,” Palts emphasised.

The majority of the good legislative drafting principles has been published in the Government of the Republic Regulation Rules for Good Legislative Practice and Legislative Drafting (HÕNTE). The important principles set out in this document include for example inclusion of interest groups and the public, assessment of the impacts related to the amendments, preparation of the drafting intentions (DI) and aligning the draft. The important principles related to inclusion are set out also in the good inclusion practice.

According to Palts it is also worrisome that very many drafts acts are not preceded by DI although it is required by the HÕNTE. “Often the failure to prepare the DI is justified with the fact of the draft act being of urgent nature,” said Palts. “Sometimes it feels as if Estonia is in a crisis so that a large majority of draft acts need to be proceeded in a hurry,” added Palts.

Prior experience of the Chamber has shown that there are much less problems in the later stages of legislative drafting if a DI has been prepared carefully. Therefore the Chamber is of the opinion that each draft act that is not justifiably urgent and is not prepared in consensus should be preceded by a DI. “We would like to emphasise that observing the principles of good legislative drafting does not mean delaying with important decisions,” assured Palts.

In its letter, the Chamber made a proposal to the Prime Minister that the Government would start regular monitoring of the quality of the draft acts prepared by the ministries and would publish the results. The government should not have to approve the significant changes in which there are important deficiencies. If deficiencies are discovered, the State Chancellery could ask the opinion of the interest groups on the specific amendment or at least if despite the deficiency, it would be reasonable for the Government to continue with the draft act. If there is no consensus it is of utmost importance to bring the draft act into accordance with the good legislative drafting principles before an amendment is approved.