| dc.description.abstract | Legislative drafters are vital for drafting legislation and transforming policies into law. Legislation is a permanent enactment that stands on its own and speaks for itself without assistance or explanation from the drafter. Legislative drafting hence requires professionals known as legislative drafters. This essential body currently has no regulation guiding it to maintain and control the ethics of the practice. Thus, the absence of regulation has often resulted in some poorly drafted legislation as some of the drafters are non-professionals or non-experts in legislative drafting. The primary objectives of this research are to examine the necessity of regulating the legislative drafters, to identify the effects of the non-regulation of legislative drafters, to determine the steps or measures to regulate the legislative drafters in Nigeria, and to understand the significance of regulating legislative drafters. The justification is ensuring that the legislative drafters are regulated to encourage good quality and effective legislation in Nigeria.
The doctrinal methodology was applied for the research, with data collated from diverse Acts, judgments, legal principles, case laws, textbooks, journals, and statutes, and a literature review was carried out to see how effective some legislations were. The study compares some Acts that conflict with existing legislation that render them unconstitutional and of no effect, especially those that conflict with the Constitution.
The study found the need to regulate legislative drafters as it was discovered that the after-effects of using non-professionals were observed in some Acts/Laws like the ICPC ACT, EFCC ACT, Electoral ACT, etc. Also, the finding is that regulating legislative drafters is an added advantage to the profession as it promotes that field of law.
The study recommends stopping or reducing poor quality or ineffective legislation to have a regulation guiding all legislative drafters. This study recommends enacting an Act by the National Assembly to regulate legislative drafters as obtained in other professions such as the Dental Council of Nigeria, the Council of Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, etc. This will also align with international best practices as done in countries like Somalia, Canada, and the USA. This research finally suggests that the National Assembly in addition to the regulation may enact an Act like the Legislative Negligence Act, similar to the Canada 2003 Act which states that, if a drafter drafts a Bill that results in litigation, then the salary of the drafter will be deducted until the litigation is over. This will promote seriousness and carefulness among legislative drafters in Nigeria. | en_US |
