In the draft of the legal backlog
ARE States members being failed by their own legal draftsmen and women? Or is the States simply trying to, or having to, do too much?
Debate this week has been wide-ranging and included comment about how the speed, or lack of it, in legal drafting was ‘undermining’ the purpose of parliament.
Political success in steering through a policy letter means nothing if the law takes years – sometimes more than a decade, if ever – to come through.
Although a list of outstanding legislation is published every year with the Government Work Plan, setting out their priority status too, deputies were concerned about a lack of transparency in the prioritisation process.
There are reported to be nearly 400 States decisions that haven’t yet passed into law.
In the 2021 GWP there were 21 ‘high priority’ laws listed – now there are 24, and 13 of them are common to both lists, still high priority two years on.
Some members referenced a lack of resources. But this is nothing new. This column was bemoaning the situation back in 2010, as the States proposed a ‘prioritisation of legislation working group’ to meet every three months to recommend legal priorities.
That never came to pass and neither did an idea of outsourcing some legal drafting to the many lawyers nowadays in private practice in the island. Meanwhile the list of laws gets longer.