Skills of Legislative Drafting and Judgment Writing

Unit 1 — The Basics of Legislative Drafting

1. Concept of legislative drafting · a) Historical development of legislative drafting · b) Theoretical foundations of this form of drafting · c) Principle characteristics of this form of drafting · d) Drafting objectives · e) Drafting and legislative Counsel · f) Legislative expression · g) Types of legislation d. Classification of primary legislation (Bills and Acts) · h) Structure and format Bills and Acts · i) Conventional structure of Bills and Acts Topic · 2. Preparation of legislative scheme · a) Clear concept of the legislative proposals; Preparation of conceptual outline · b) Check the existing law c. Importance and preparation of skeleton legislation and legislative scheme · 3. Basic Techniques of Legislative Drafting · a) Style · b) Simplicity of Language · c) Over Drafting · d) Vagueness

• Drafting of Bills and Amendment Bills

Unit 2 — Structure and style

1. Grammar and punctuation marks · a) Why is grammar important for drafting? · b) What grammatical terms do we need to know? · c) What common grammatical mistakes should we watch for? · d) How do we punctuate and capitalize · 2. The components of legislative sentences · a) Principal subject · b) Principal predicate · c) Predicate modifiers · 3. Main parts of legislation · 4. Common phrases and their significance · 5. The structure a legislative text · a) General considerations · b) Drafting sections · c) Drafting sentences in sections · d) Paragraphing · e) Numbering · f) Ordering and linking sentences in a section · g) Linking sections · h) Incorporation by reference · i) Grouping Section · 6. Organise a legislative text · a) General considerations · b) Preparing an outline · c) Factors influencing an outline for a Bill Text · 7. The parameters of good legislative style · a) General considerations · b) Developing good legislative style · c) Gender-neutral drafting · d) Some additional matters of style

• Drafting of Bills and Amendment Bills

Unit 3 — Working within limits

1. The interpretive approaches and rules · a) General considerations · b) Judicial approaches to interpretation · c) Interpretive assumptions and presumptions · d) Aids to interpretation · 2. The role of Principles of Interpretation Acts · a) Importance of Interpretation Acts · b) Application of Interpretation Acts · c) Using Interpretation Acts to facilitate drafting

Unit 4 — Judgment

1. Meaning and definition of Judgement · 2. Purpose of a Judgment · 3. Element or Framework of a judgment · 4. Structuring of Judgement - Civil Case and Criminal Case · 5. Importance of reasoning · 6. Syllogistic process, inferential process or intuitive process. · 7. Basics feature of every good judgment

• Drafting of Judgments and Orders

Unit 5 — The art of writing a judgment

1. Judicial Modesty & Moderation · 2. Brevity in Judgment · 3. psychological and technical aspects · 4. Neutrality and impartiality · 5. The content of the judgment · 6. The care and caution while writing the judgment · 7. The ideal writing of a judgment · 8. Simplicity, clarity and non-repeatability for judgment writing · 9. Individual style of judgment writing · 10. Quantity is the enemy of quality · 11. Language of Judgement · 12. Writing judgments: before and during the hearing and after the hearing

• Drafting of Judgments and Orders