Drafting Legislation - by Helen Xanthaki (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book constitutes the first thorough academic analysis of legislative drafting. It explores the reasons why drafting rules have come about and thus encourages readers to understand what is pursued by each rule and how each rule applies.

Book Synopsis

This book constitutes the first thorough academic analysis of legislative drafting. By placing the study of legislation and its principles within the paradigm of Flyvberg's phronetic social sciences, it offers a novel approach which breaks the tradition of unimaginative past descriptive reiterations of drafting conventions. Instead of prescribing rules for legislation, it sets out to identify efficacy as the main aim of the actors in the policy, legislative and drafting processes, and effectiveness as the main goal in the drafting of legislation. Through the prism of effectiveness as synonymous with legislative quality, the book explores the stages of the drafting process; guides the reader through structure and sections in their logical sequence, and introduces rules for drafting preliminary, substantive and final provisions. Special provisions, comparative legislative drafting and training for drafters complete this thorough analysis of the drafting of legislation as a tool for regulation. Instead of teaching the reader which drafting rules prevail, the book explores the reasons why drafting rules have come about, thus encouraging readers to understand what goal is served by each rule and how each rule applies. The book is aimed at academics and practitioners who draft or use statutory law in the common or civil law traditions.

Review Quotes

"Drafting Legislation is a formidable work. It is detailed, it is comprehensive, and, although dense in content, is a worthwhile read for the information it presents. Prof. Xanthaki has made an outstanding contribution to advancing what she correctly labels as the art and science of drafting. It is indispensable work for those serious about drafting legislation." --Theory and Practice of Legislation

"This book is a new project that brings together a decade or more of teaching, research and practice to analyse the function, objectives and ideas of legislative drafting. ... the book certainly deserves to go to further editions .... Scholarship and wisdom in this excellent book... Its breadth of learning and its depth of practical wisdom should ensure that it becomes a standard reference book for drafting students and drafting practitioners alike. It deserves a permanent place on drafters' bookshelves alongside their favourite dictionary, their thesaurus, their prized books on writing techniques, and their well-thumbed Thornton." --Public Law

"The book is published in an auspicious moment, with the Cabinet Office and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel currently running a Good Law initiative ... In part, this book might be seen as an advertisement for such a course (in legislative drafting) and it will be for those who read it to see whether they wish to take up the challenge." --Legal Studies

"Professor Xanthaki is one of those all too rare legal academics who deign to consider some of the more practical aspects of the practice of law (...). Professor Xanthaki is to be commended for taking a now accepted precept of drafting with the intended audience in mind and applying it in a much more rigorous way (...). She has done a great service to the drafting community in bringing together an enormous body of literature on legislative drafting, providing a framework for analysing it and performing that analysis on the many practical aspects of the discipline. The book is a valuable resource and stimulus for critically thinking about how laws should be drafted. Can there be any higher calling in the legal world?" --Loophole

"Helen Xanthaki's new book on Drafting Legislation is a big leap forward (...) The book is an excellent introduction to drafting legislation from a modern perspective, useful to English and non-English readers." --European Journal of Law Reform

"A new book on legislative drafting is to be welcomed. Following her sensitive editing of the fifth edition of Thronton, Porfessor Xanthakin here sets herself the task of applying Flyvberg's model of phronetic social science to the process of legislative drafting. ... Professor Xanthaki .. . is to be congratulated on presenting the reader with an impressively wide range of both official and academic literature on drafting" --Statute Law Review

"Xanthaki presents in Drafting Legislation a uniquely wide analysis of legislative drafting, and keeps true to her goal not to merely present legislative techniques but to critically analyse them." --Legislation and Evaluation (LeGes)

"The theoretical and doctrinal approach of the volume of Helen Xanthaki is undoubtedly innovative. The approach can only bring benefits." --Rassegna Parlamentare

"The book of Helen Xanthaki is in many ways impressive and a high quality contribution." --Zeitschrift fur Gesetzgeburg

About the Author

Helen Xanthaki is Professor of Law and Legislative Drafting and Director of Research Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies of the University of London, and the Academic Director of the Sir William Dale Centre for Legislative Studies there.