Legislative Drafter

Background

The Seychelles’ Attorney General’s Office (AGO) is facing a number of capacity constraints to the exercise of its drafting mandate. The position of Principal Legal Draftsperson, which leads the country’s legal drafting efforts, is currently vacant. Further, the Legislative Drafting Division faces a lack of capacity at the level of its more junior staff, and has in recent years relied on expatriates to fill top drafting positions, which is an unsustainable means of institutional strengthening.

These human resource issues are compounded by a marked increase in the Legislative Drafting Division’s workload, including drafting requirements resulting from the introduction of the International Monetary Fund reform programme, a new constitutional amendment bill, and the Seychelles’ potential membership of the World Trade Organisation, under discussion.

The results of these capacity constraints are a backlog of enactments and an unsatisfactory quality of drafted enactments.

The Legislative Drafting Division is one of three divisions under the management of the Attorney General through the Department for Legal Affairs. It is facing a number of constraints to its ability to exercise its drafting mandate, as described in the “Problem” section of this document. The AGO thus requires assistance in the development of its capacity to fulfil its drafting mandate, through the provision of short-term drafting assistance, complemented with training and on-going mentoring to build the long-term institutional capacity in the area of legislative drafting.

Purpose of the project

The purpose of this project is to strengthen the legislative drafting capacity of the Attorney General's Office (AGO) and to draft key legislation.

Scope of work

One expert in the area of legislative drafting will be recruited to implement this project. The expert will be based at the Attorney General’s Office in Mahe for a period of two years and will work closely with AGO personnel in realising the project objectives, in so doing building the institutional capacity of the AGO.

It is expected that the purpose will be achieved through the realisation of the following outputs, the expected activities associated with which are shown below:

1. Key legislation drafted:

Expected activities not limited to but to include:

• Draft new and pending legislation, as required;
• Assist in the preparation of an updated volume of Seychelles legislation;
• Assist the Attorney-General's Office in the drafting of and conduct of a consultation regarding the proposed constitutional amendment bill.

2. Legislative drafting capacity needs of key AGO personnel assessed and addressed:

Expected activities not limited to but to include:

• Assess legislative drafting capacity of key AGO personnel;
• Prepare and agree training implementation plan for key AGO personnel (including content and means of delivery);
• Train and mentor key AGO personnel in legislative drafting;
• Assist in the recruitment of vacant and new legislative drafting posts, including the Principle Legislative Draftsperson, if relevant.

3. Drafting instruction capacity needs of ministry representatives are assessed and addressed:

Expected activities not limited to but to include:

• Assess training needs of ministry representatives drafting instructions;
• Provide training to ministry representatives drafting instructions, where relevant.

4. Legislative drafting guidelines developed and disseminated:

Expected activities not limited to but to include:

• Draft and develop legislative drafting guidelines;
• Agree legislative drafting guidelines with AGO.

Transfer of expertise

By combining the provision of legal drafting assistance alongside capacity development, provided on a day-to-day basis by the fact of the expert being based at the AGO, this project is expected to have a sustained impact in both the short and long term. The expert legal drafter recruited under this project will also be expected to produce standardised written guidelines for locally appointed drafters and for Ministry representatives responsible for preparation of drafting instructions. The assistance provided by the project is expected to contribute to the ability of the Seychelles to engage in various regional and international fora in the pursuit of its socio-economic development. Advances in these areas will contribute to the ability of the Seychelles to maintain the positive impact of this project upon the country’s drafting capacity.

Implementation arrangements

This project will be implemented in partnership with the Attorney General’s Office, where the expert will be based. He/she will work closely with all key personnel at the AGO and will report to the Attorney General.

This project will be managed and monitored by the Technical Cooperation & Strategic Response Group (TCSRG) in the Governance Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat, with technical support provided to the project by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Division (LCAD).

Person specification

The expert should have:

• A law degree or other relevant qualification
• At least 10 years experience in legislative drafting acquired within commonwealth jurisdictions, particularly in drafting constitutional reform and/or amendments
• Experience in providing professional advice concerning legislative drafting on constitutional, human rights or other public law issues, at a senior level
• Strong communication, writing and IT skills
• Ability to establish priorities and to plan, coordinate and monitor work
• Good inter-personal skills, ability to work in a consultative and collaborative manner
• Ability to establish and maintain effective partnerships and working relationships in a political environment
• Demonstrated leadership in drafting matters

Download the Terms and Conditions of Service