Legislative Strengthening Program (LSP): Legislative Drafting and the Legal Profession

The program focuses on legislative drafting and the legal profession, with the goal of producing sound legislation. The LSP is a part of the USAID/Iraq SO10 program, which seeks to improve the capacity of national government institutions. The role of the legal profession in the legislative drafting process is crucial. Legal practitioners with a wide range of knowledge, skills, and experience can significantly improve the quality of legislation. However, a balance must be struck between legal and non-legal expertise. Lawyers are indispensable for legislative drafting, but non-lawyers cannot draft legally correct legislation on their own. To produce sound legislation, each country must take a deliberate and strategic approach to defining the role of the legal profession. This includes identifying the individuals or groups who can provide expertise, determining the types of expertise needed, and establishing the timing, mechanisms, and format for providing this expertise. By analyzing best practices and different models, Iraq can make the best possible use of legal expertise during the legislative drafting process. The relative influence of legal and non-legal expertise in drafting legislation varies between countries. Factors that influence the balance include the system of government, political and electoral processes, federalism, regionalism, and the degree of local autonomy. Despite these differences, there are many best practices that deserve attention and replication. The legislative drafting process involves several stages, including policy development, design of legislation, legislative drafting, assessment of legislation, and finalization. Legal expertise can contribute to each of these stages, including providing advice on policy options, planning and outlining draft legislation, and reviewing draft legislation to ensure that it is practical, effective, and likely to achieve its intended goals. Countries in transition or reforming their legal system face a double challenge: a great demand for legislative drafting skills and a shortage of legal professionals who can draft modern legislation. This creates a dilemma, as the supply of legal expertise is insufficient to meet current demand. To address this challenge, it is necessary to rationalize the use of legal expertise and distinguish between two specific skill sets: active legislative drafting skills and legislative interpretation skills. Active legislative drafting skills are required for creating new legislation, while legislative interpretation skills are required for reviewing, analyzing, assessing, and applying legislation prepared by others. By understanding the relationship between the stages of the legislative drafting process and the potential contribution of legal expertise, countries can determine how to manage and utilize available legal expertise to produce sound legislation.