Draft Legislation Research Articles

Legal regulation of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service (A comparative analytical study)

This research attempts to study some of the laws of the intelligence agencies in certain countries in terms of organizing and supervising these agencies, as these agencies play an important and fundamental role in protecting national security and supporting the rule of law. Its direct objective is to collect, analyze and disseminate information that helps policy makers take the necessary measures to protect national security, which includes the protection of individuals and their private rights.
 This research deals with the problem of weak legislative drafting of the Iraqi Intelligence Law of 2013 in many aspects, the most important of which is its extreme brevity and linking it to other laws of a civil nature.
 The research adopted a comparative analytical methodology that examined the constitutions of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Republic of Iraq, with an analysis and comparison of intelligence laws in those countries.
 The research is divided into two main chapters in addition to the introduction and conclusion. The first chapter is titled The Concept of Intelligence, while the second one is titled Legal Provisions for the Intelligence Service.

Registering Cosmetics? The Constitution of Legal Form and Injurious Substance in Canada (1945-1946).

In midcentury Canada, legislative drafters, government lawyers, food and drug officials, and ministers grappled with cosmetics. Faced with constitutional concerns about cosmetic licensing, these actors drafted legislative amendments that would instead require cosmetics to be registered. In contrast to people or land, the registration of products, substances, or things has received little attention in sociolegal scholarship. Building on work investigating law's temporalities and materiality, this account traces how in-formed by the constitutional doctrine that apprehended substances through the legal form of prohibition, cosmetics were rendered in draft legislation as constituted of ingredients that may cause injury. Injury, in this account, is a material-temporal regime. Yet cosmetic injury was neither static nor singular, as it was catalysed differently by distinctive regulatory devices. This is shown by last-minute changes to the bill which retooled cosmetic registration, from an information extraction device for anticipating future harms, into a recording device for capturing latent harms.

Fiduciary duties and the 1985 Hague Trusts Convention

Abstract This article considers the ongoing work and application of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) Convention of 1 July 1985 on the Law Applicable to Trusts and on their Recognition (Trusts Convention). The article analyses fiduciary duties found across the trusts legislation and draft legislation of selected common and civil law jurisdictions. The commonalities of fiduciary duties across jurisdictions are presented here to provide a foundation for discussion among legal experts regarding their possible future inclusion in the HCCH Trusts Convention or in supporting materials developed by the HCCH as a list of fiduciary duties. Such a list of duties would foster certainty and predictability for those involved in legal relationships created by trusts.

Inclusion of Definitions in Legislative Drafting: A Necessity or a Luxury?

Legislative drafting is a crucial element in the formation of legal norms. The success of these norms depends on the accuracy of the words used and the appropriateness of its tools, as it is subject to a set of rules and mechanisms that the legislator must follow, whether at the level of form or at the level of content. Our study will focus on the rule related to using definitions in the exact way to include them in the legislative drafting. It aims to standardize the terms used by the legislator in the legal text in order to avoid any confusion or ambiguity about these terms, and to distinguish it from other meanings that may come in other texts but in a different concepts. The research problem revolves around the extent to which legislation needs to include definitions in laws, is it a necessity or just a luxury? We will address this problem using the descriptive and comparative approach by dividing the study into two parts, the first part deal with the need to include definitions in laws, and the second part addresses the norms governing the use of definitions in legislative drafting. We conclude, that adding a legal definition to the legislative process, giving it legal meaning, would perpetuate the rigid, ossified concept of law. Contrast that with jurisprudential definitions, which sometimes change the true meaning of jurists' terms. However, each definition will be kept in line with the pace of legislation to keep up with the pace of social development, in case it becomes outdated or needs to be supplemented.
 Keywords: legal drafting, definitions, improvement of law, legal security.

Loot box gambling addiction risk versus responsible computing: a systematic review

There are many ways to monetize video games: from the simple direct purchase to the system of “games as a service”. There are, however, forms of monetization that show strong indications of being detrimental to consumers, such as the so-called “loot boxes” that are offered during gameplay. No study so far has categorically proven whether or not loot boxes cause a dependency or lead to gambling addiction, therefore this study seeks to perform a systematic literature review to determine which studies and experiments were performed, in order to: 1) determine the harmful effects of loot box consumption; 2) compare the results found in these studies; 3) identify gaps in the methodology applied to suggest further research that might lead to stronger conclusions and 4) check if there are studies in the field of responsible computing of articles that aim to minimize the harmful effects of loot box in humans. These studies could be useful in, for example, supporting the drafting of regulatory legislation for the use of microtransactions in video games, and consumer protection and the need to research computational algorithms to try to reduce potential addictive effects generated by loot boxes, which is part of responsible computing. In this study, although this systematic review shows that these studies still do not prove that loot boxes lead to gambling addiction, they do show that there is a correlation between them and there is still a need for more studies in the field of computing area dedicated to the research of algorithms that seek to minimize the potentially harmful effects of loot box in humans.

Public Consultation in Kosovo

The primary aim of the paper is to explore whether the public consultation system in Kosovo enables respective stakeholders to contribute and protect their interests during the process of drafting government policies and legislation. Based on the analysis of Kosovo’s legal framework in place, and findings from the empirical research with CSOs, we can conclude that Kosovo has undertaken substantial legislative steps and introduced new tools and guidelines to improve the public consultation system at the central and municipal level of government. Therefore, from the legal point of view, minimum standards for the consultation process are established under Kosovo’s legal framework. Considering the role of civil society organisations and their influence on policymaking in Kosovo, particular attention has been paid to the CSOs’ perception of this issue. The analysis of a sample of documents and CSOs’ responses reveals concerns on whether stakeholders are enabled to contribute to the drafting of policies and legislation. A major issue of concern with regard to the effectiveness of the current consultation system in Kosovo is the low response rate from stakeholders as compared to the number of documents open to consultation. The study demonstrates a lack of clarity about how institutions select, invite and involve stakeholders, whether they select the appropriate stakeholders to participate in the drafting and consultation process, and whether sufficient information and feedback is provided to them about the individual consultations.

KODEKS ETYKI LEKARZA WETERYNARII – WYBRANE PROBLEMY PRAWNE

The Code of Ethics for Veterinary Surgeons (the Code), as a legal act of the selfgovernment within the profession in which the public repose confidence, should not go beyond the limits set by Article 17 of the Polish Constitution. Under this provision, the self-governments in professions of public confidence are to represent the practitioners and concern themselves with the proper practice of those professions in accordance with, and for the purpose of protecting, the public interest. Moreover, since the Code is a normative regulation of internal nature, it should be drawn up in line with the principles of legislative drafting and may not infringe the acts of universally binding law. The aim of this paper is to find out whether the Code conforms to the above assumptions. Special attention is drawn to the relations between the Code and the practice of the veterinary profession. The compliance of the Code with the Polish Constitution and other legal issues relating to the Code are also discussed. The paper concludes with proposed amendments that should be introduced to the Code.

The Protection, Ownership, and Return of Cultural Property: A Surinamese Law Perspective

This article explores the ownership of cultural objects within national and traditional customary law in Suriname, with the aim to provide a legal context to the issue of claims for the return of some of these cultural objects from the Netherlands. The discussion of the legal regime for exporting cultural objects examines the National Ordinance of 1952 on Provisions for the Preservation of Objects with Historical, Cultural, and Scientific Value; the Movement of Goods Act of 2003; and the Monuments Act of 2002, which protects immovable objects, objects of archaeological excavations, and discoveries. This is followed by a short overview of the legal regime relating to the ownership of cultural property under the Surinamese Civil Code. Next this article outlines the property law of cultural objects under customary laws of Indigenous and Tribal communities in Suriname and how these may be included in the Draft Civil Code and the Draft Legislation on Rules Concerning the Collective Land Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples. The article concludes that neither the existing legal framework nor the draft legislation provide answers on dealing with cultural objects acquired in a colonial context and the possible repatriation of such objects.

SOME ISSUES OF ADMINISTRATION OF DRAFT LEGISLATIVE ACTS DEVELOPED BY BODIES OF THE EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY AND SENT FOR APPROVAL TO THE MINISTRY OF DEFENСE OF UKRAINE

The article examines procedural issues at various stages of the interaction of the representative of the Ministry of Defense, as an interested legislature, with specialists of the executive authority, as a developer, during the preparation and submission of draft legislative acts to the Government.
 The purpose of the article is to develop a variant of the functional scheme of interaction of the interested legislature body with the drafter of the legislative act in order to improve the knowledge and skills of officials during the monitoring of conciliation procedures to improve the quality of processing of documentary materials on these issues.
 The proposed version of the functional scheme of interaction has practical significance and will be useful in the structural divisions of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (Armed Forces of Ukraine) during coordination procedures and ensuring effective support of the projects of draft legislative acts developed by the executive authorities and sent to the Ministry of Defense for approval.
 The methodical material presented in the article with the appropriate degree of unification can be recommended to the personnel of the structural divisions of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (Armed Forces of Ukraine) for use in official activities.

Thornton’s Legislative Drafting

I have been using and enjoying Thornton’s Legislative Drafting for over 30 years, and although I cannot say that I have consulted it regularly or frequently, my occasional resorts to its wisdom have generally been rewarded with something of value, particularly in my early years as a drafter. One thing that all practitioners of the art of legislative drafting agree (and it is very possibly the only thing on which they all agree) is that you cannot teach legislative drafting at a theoretical level, and one can learn the art only by performing it under constructive supervision. For that reason, office manuals in legislative drafting offices that attempt to constrain the drafter to follow set devices and patterns to deal with particular legislative situations are notoriously doomed to failure, because the drafter needs to be free to apply her or his mind to the widest possible set of legal, political and other circumstances in crafting each provision, whether it appears to follow well-trodden policy paths or to be entirely novel.

Gale Primary Sources: Indigenous Peoples of North America, Part II, The Indian Rights Association, 1882‐1986

Indigenous Peoples of North America is included in the Gale Primary Sources series and is in two parts. This database, The Indian Rights Association, 1882‐1986, is the second of the two. The Indian Rights Association (IRA) is the first organization to address American Indian rights and interests, and this collection includes its organizational records; incoming and outgoing correspondence; annual reports; draft legislation; photographs; administrative files; pamphlets, publications, and other print materials (including documents from the Council on Indian Affairs and other American Indian organizations); and manuscripts and research notes on Indian traditions, both social and cultural. Founded in 1882 by White philanthropists, the IRA's initial approach to American Indians was both assimilationist and paternalistic, leading it to advocate for the detribalization of America's Indigenous peoples, maintaining it would improve their social and economic status. Nevertheless, it was one of the first organizations to report on and expose the corruption of federal government officials tasked with working with and for American Indians. Eventually, the IRA would discard assimilationism and work with other, newer, occasionally Indian-run organizations such as the Association on American Indian Affairs, the Society of American Indians, and the National Indian Defense Association. The IRA sought to debunk misconceptions and half-truths about American Indians and their condition in the United States, which were too often the basis for policy and legislation related to Native Americans. It also sent association representatives to Indian reservations to make note of local conditions there, not only to evaluate the actions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) but also to provide background information for legislation related to Indigenous peoples.This database's search functions often produce results relevant to the query submitted, and both its search and browse functions can be navigated with relative ease. This database can be subscribed to or purchased with an annual hosting fee. The purchase price, based on a variety of factors, can start as low as $2,796 for public libraries or $3,994 for academic libraries, with starting annual hosting fees of $22 and $32, respectively. Whether institutions find this pricing reasonable depends on their need for the materials covered by the Indigenous Peoples of North America collection. The licensing agreement for this database is too long and detailed but standard in its composition and therefore is of no concern.

Policy Forum: Digital Asset Mining and GST—Tax Policy Versus Public Policy

On February 4, 2022, the Department of Finance released draft legislation that, if enacted, would deem digital asset mining activities undertaken in Canada not to be "commercial activities" for goods and services tax (GST)/harmonized sales tax (HST) purposes. In 1991, Canada introduced the GST to remove sales tax as a cost of doing business in Canada with a view to making Canada's domestically produced goods and services more competitive in international markets. Yet 30 years later, Finance is proposing legislation hidden in the "special cases" provisions of the GST legislation that will make the 5 percent to 15 percent GST/HST an input cost to Canadian digital asset miners selling their computing services to non-residents of Canada. Further, it appears that Finance is doing so with an ulterior public policy objective—to impose financial market regulation and "know-your-client" rules on mining operators. This article provides an overview of how proof-of-work cryptocurrency blockchains operate, the parties involved, how GST would normally apply to the sector and to Canadian participants in particular, and why the proposed February 4, 2022 amendments are problematic from a tax policy perspective.

Assisted human reproduction legislation: Listening to the voice of patients

ObjectiveLegislation and policies regarding assisted human reproduction (AHR) vary widely across nations and societies. As one of only 5 European countries which currently lacks legislation, Ireland now has a unique opportunity to learn from other jurisdictions and introduce AHR law that is reflective of the ongoing myriad developments in this complex field. Draft legislation, initially published in 2017, was revised in 2022 with strong political commitment to enacting in the same year. This study sought to ascertain the views of fertility patients (service users) to the proposed AHR legislation in its current format, prior to its implementation. Study designA survey questionnaire, previously designed to investigate the attitudes and perceptions of healthcare professionals (HCPs) towards a broad range of issues contained within the draft AHR Bill, was adapted for a patient/service user population. The survey link was distributed via secure email to all patients that had a doctor consult at our fertility clinic in 2020–2021. ResultsThe survey link was sent to 4420 patients/service users, of whom 1044 (23.6%) responded. A majority had experienced AHR treatment. Service users indicated strong support for AHR regulation and for access to all AHR techniques for all patients, irrespective of relationship or gender status. A majority of respondents disagreed with aspects of the draft bill regarding mandatory counselling, the timing of assignment of parentage in surrogacy, the exclusion of international surrogacy and the exclusion of men from posthumous AHR. Interestingly, the fertility patient cohort were more liberal in their views and opinions regarding AHR than the Irish HCPs previously surveyed. ConclusionThis study demonstrates the views of a large group of AHR patients/service users towards proposed AHR legislation. Many of their views concur with but others differ from those of the drafters of the legislation and from those of healthcare professionals. Consideration of the views of all these groups and a collaborative approach would help ensure that Ireland has AHR legislation that is inclusive and fit for purpose in the 21st century.

The Legislative Drafting in Sweden: Its Informal and Non-Linear Nature

The Legislative Drafting in Sweden: Its Informal and Non-Linear Nature

Representing legislative Rules as Code: Reducing the problems of ‘scaling up’

We propose an approach to analysing the nature of existing legal rules, particularly legislative rules, that regards legislation as fundamentally a set of related propositions. We propose a method for representing these rules, using a coding language developed for the project that uses a quasi-natural language representation. It enables the interpreter program for that coding language to process these rules so as to produce ‘consultations’ to determine the values of goals which the legislation is capable of determining, with dialogues and explanations generated ‘on the fly’.Progress that has been made in automating this coding process to create rules in that coding language directly from existing legislation, using a pre-processor program developed for the project. This can also be described as ‘scaling up’ the production of ‘Rules as Code’ or ‘Law as Code’. If successfully developed further this has potential to make a significant contribution toward realising the practical potential of Rules as Code.We conclude there is now evidence that these processes can be generalised (‘scaled up’) to deal with the conversion or production of large bodies of legislation, and that this has considerable value. The pre-processor software is evolving rapidly, in the variety of structural forms of legislation that it can convert into the coding language, and this work will continue.Based on this experience, we also demonstrate how the drafting of legislation could be changed so that appropriately drafted legislation is directly readable and understandable by humans and also directly usable by machines. To be effective, laws drafted in this way will need to be simultaneously authoritative legislative rules and code.

The Principles of Good Legislation Forming: A Critical Review

This study aims to examine and analyze the fundamentality of the principles of good legislation forming. This study uses normative legal research with historical, conceptual, and statute approaches. The collection of legal materials is carried out using a literature study technique. The collected legal material is then qualitatively analyzed to describe the problem and answer study purposes. The results show that the principles of law are the spirit or soul of the law. The law will exist and grow in society, only and if the law is rooted in the principles of law. Meanwhile, legislation means written regulations containing generally binding legal norms. So that the principles of good legislation forming are principles of law that provide guidelines and guidance for formulating the contents of regulations. Therefore, it is recommended for legal academics to have a construction of thought based on the principles of law. In addition, the Government must ensure every legal academic’s competence when making academic manuscripts of draft legislation. In this case, the law-based state must achieve social justice for Indonesia’s people.

Afro-feminism and the Coloniality of Gender in Constitutional and Legislative Drafting: South Africa as a Case Study

Before essential feminist contributions to legal drafting were made, legislative drafters adopted the use of the masculine rule, which established that all genders were implicitly included in the usage of the pseudo-generic third person masculine singulars such as ‘he’ and ‘him.’ In the 1960s, feminism acted as a nucleus for an approach to legal drafting that was inclusive of and thus avoided the erasure of women in constitutional and legislative language. Historically, the concept of gender neutrality has been approached from binary cisgendered and heteronormative perspectives. Legal drafters now have to take cognisance of this evolving reality as there is a growing need for legislation that is gender diverse and non-heteronormative. The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998 has been subject to criticism for its use of gendered language that excludes queer couples. This article places the development of an understanding of inclusive legal drafting in South Africa within Afro-feminist theory. These theories present a more useful framework for thinking beyond a binary view of language in legal drafting. They also present an opportunity of placing inclusive legal drafting as African, in the face of continued marginalisation and subjugation of gender and sexual minorities on the continent. Using theories such as the coloniality of gender, the coloniality of being and the coloniality of knowledge for deconstructing Western and consequently binary notions of gender neutrality, I suggest an Afro-feminist understanding of drafting that will consequently be gender-neutral in a way that is inclusive of queer people.

Redistricting for Proportionality

Abstract American democracy is currently heavily reliant on plurality in single-member districts, or PSMD, as a system of election. But public perceptions of fairness are often keyed to partisan proportionality, or the degree of congruence between each party’s share of the vote and its share of representation. PSMD has not tended to secure proportional outcomes historically, partially due to gerrymandering, where line-drawers intentionally extract more advantage for their side. But it is now increasingly clear that even blind PSMD is frequently disproportional, and in unpredictable ways that depend on local political geography. In this paper we consider whether it is feasible to bring PSMD into alignment with a proportionality norm by targeting proportional outcomes in the design and selection of districts. We do this mainly through a close examination of the “Freedom to Vote Test,” a redistricting reform proposed in draft legislation in 2021. We find that applying the test with a proportionality target makes for sound policy: it performs well in legal battleground states and has a workable exception to handle edge cases where proportionality is out of reach.

Lost in Translation: Legislative Drafting and Judicial Discretion

Lost in Translation: Legislative Drafting and Judicial Discretion

Design Principles for Integrated Legislation Drafting Environment

Design Principles for Integrated Legislation Drafting Environment