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Overview

In LGST 553: Legislative Drafting Process and Limits, students will continue to develop their drafting skills and their familiarity with approaches to legislative drafting typical in common law jurisdictions. This course examines how the drafter works with clients in the legislative process through the use of formal instructions. It also considers the legal context in which legislation operates in terms of its interpretation and constitutional limits, including fundamental rights and freedoms.

Outline

LGST 553 consists of seven Sections, organized in two Modules.

Module 1: Law-Making Processes and Working with Clients

Section 1: What Is Legislative Drafting All About?

1. Drafting and Legislative Counsel

Section 2: What Are the Processes for Making Laws, and What Is Our Role as Legislative Counsel?

1. Preparing a Bill
2. Enacting a Bill
3. How Does the Preparation of Subsidiary Legislation Differ?

Section 3: How Do We Work with Drafting Instructions?

1. Getting Instructions
2. Analyzing Instructions

Module 2: Working within Limits

Section 1: How Do We Work with Interpretive Approaches and Rules?

1. General Considerations
2. Judicial Approaches to Interpretation
3. Interpretive Assumptions and Presumptions
4. Aids to Interpretation
5. Conclusion

Section 2: How Do We Work with Interpretation Acts?

1. Importance of Interpretation Acts
2. Application of Interpretation Acts
3. Using Interpretation Acts to Facilitate Drafting

Section 3: How Do We Work with the Constitution?

1. The Constitution and the Legislative Counsel
2. Particular Constitutional Constraints

Section 4: How Do We Work with Fundamental Rights and Freedoms?

1. Drafting under a Bill of Rights
2. International Standards

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate an understanding of legislative drafting processes and the role of legislative counsel.
2. Analyze instructions for legislation to determine if further instructions are required, and take action to obtain them.
3. Draft legislation from simple instructions.
4. Draft effective legislation consistent with legal constraints and interpretive principles.
5. Question legislative proposals that might be inconsistent with fundamental rights and freedoms.

Evaluation

To receive credit for LGST 553, you must complete and submit all of the assignments and achieve a minimum grade of C− (60 percent) for the course.

You will be evaluated according to the principles of legislative drafting, including style, research, background / context and grammar / mechanics. Your final grade in the course will be based on the marks achieved for the following activities.

Activity	Weight
Drafting Project 1	25%
Drafting Project 2	25%
Drafting Project 3	25%
Drafting Project 4	25%
Total	100%

Materials

All materials are available online.

Important links

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