Veteran parliamentarian Murli Manohar Joshi on Friday said legislative drafting is an extremely responsible job and those who write should keep in mind the interests of the people at large. Inaugurating the international training programme in legislative drafting, Joshi said due care and caution should be exercised in drafting as it is subject to through scrutiny of the society and judiciary.
“Each word, that a draftsman uses while preparing a legislative proposal, is open to scrutiny by the public and that of the judiciary. As such, it is an extremely responsible job, which should be performed with due care and caution,” said Joshi.
Counseling the draftsmen to be cognisant of social and judicial aspects of legislative proposals being drafted by them, the Estimates Committee Chairman Joshi felt that they should keep in mind the interests of the people at large. He observed that the legislations should not only meet the requirements of judicial scrutiny but should also be in consonance with our social realities.
He urged the officials to use simple language in legislative drafting. “Technical or incomprehensible terminology and difficult words should be avoided as they lead to confusion and multiplicity of interpretations. What we need is clarity novelty of language,” he said.
The training programme was conducted by Parliament’s Bureau of Parliamentary Studies and Training (BPST).