Coordination of Law-Making: Canadian Experience

Abstract

The article discusses the Canadian experience of coordination of law-making activities of the Privy Council Office, the Department of Justice and the Parliament of Canada. The article identifies the benefits of centralized provision of legal services to government performance, including a clear definition of the subjects of the coordination and legislative drafters, measures for their professionalism, quality control. Nine-year-old experience of the Canadian model of organization and functioning of the Legal Department of the administration of the Lipetsk region and sociological researches of the author based on the results of the experiment, enable us to reach the following conclusions: lawyers involved in legal support of activity of the specialized bodies of the Executive power, feel independence, resulting in: a) they are involved in the process of elaborating legal acts from the first days that had a positive effect on compliance with deadlines and implementation of standard-setting activities; b) they were able to improve their skills at a proper level, use the legal experience of others as a result of the exchange at conferences, meetings, trainings. Real options have appeared: a) career growth; b) reallocation functions more effectively between staff of the legal service; c) forming some common legal positions). This contributed to the fact that, for example, in 2008-2015 none of the regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation, where the experiment was held, has not been challenged in court. Thus, the analysis of the use of Canadian expertise in activities of executive bodies of State power of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation suggests the desirability of disseminating Canadian model coordination lawmaking at the federal level.