Communication and interpretation

Essentially the drafting and interpretation of statutes and delegated legislation is simply an exercise in communication. Having decided what it wants to do, Parliament, or those whom Parliament has authorised to make delegated legislation, communicates the result to the world at large, including the courts which have to enforce it.

A particularly useful collection of insights into the drafting process is provided by a DVD made in 2010 by the Statute Law Society, in conjunction with Oxford University. This explains the legislative process from the political beginnings of a policy proposal through to the conclusion of the Parliamentary stage. The explanations are provided by a former Lord Chancellor (who deals with the political realities surrounding the creation and delivery of the government’s legislative programme); a departmental lawyer (who deals with the process by which policy ideas are developed into legislative proposals); First Parliamentary Counsel (who deals with the process of drafting the Bills which, in due course, become Acts of Parliament); clerks from both Houses of Parliament (who deal with the practicalities of Parliamentary procedure); the legal adviser to the Joint Committee on Human Rights (which scrutinises legislative proposals from a human rights perspective and is called Joint because its members are drawn from both Houses of Parliament); and a former chair of the Law Commission (that is to say, the official body with responsibility for keeping the law under review and making proposals for reform). There is also a lecture on How Statute Law Is Made, given by First Parliamentary Counsel, which provides an overview of the entire topic. On its release, copies of the DVD were distributed to all English and Welsh Law Schools and its content, which may be used for any non-commercial purposes, is freely downloadable from podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/statute-law-making-legislation. In more conventional form, Principles of Legislative and Regulatory Drafting (Ian McLeod, 2009) provides an accessible introduction to the challenges and techniques of drafting legislation.