Lawyers benefit from legislative drafting course in Africa

The last in a series of legislative drafting training courses is currently being conducted in Ghana for Commonwealth African lawyers.

With 26 participants from 15 African member countries, this 12-week training from 21 July to 10 October is helping to equip lawyers with the necessary skills to draft laws for their respective governments.

Guest lectures cover banking and financial law, human rights, immigration law, lobbying, law reform, alternative dispute resolution and tax legislation amongst others delivered by academics and other experts. The training involves formal teaching and practical exercises in legislative drafting delivered by a team of experienced legal drafters.

Carmen Bila, one of the participants, who works in Mozambique’s Ministry of Justice, said: “I think that this is a very important course for legislative drafters because we don’t learn this skill at university.”

She feels that the skills she has learnt will help her contribute positively to the drafting system in her country.

Another participant, David Osei Asare from Ghana’s Law Reform Commission, has indicated an interest in specialising in legislative drafting in the future.

“Lawyers like me can only benefit from courses like this. When the Commission where I work chooses to have its own drafting team then my colleagues and I will be ready to let this training come into good use,” he said.

The course is being facilitated by Estelle Appiah, Director of Legislative Drafting at the Attorney-General's Department of the Ministry of Justice in Ghana, as the Course Co-ordinator and lecturer. Justice Crabbe, a retired judge, is the Course Director, and the other lecturer on legislative drafting is Sabina Ofori-Boateng, immediate past Director of Legislative Drafting.

The training programme was introduced three years ago at the request of Commonwealth law ministers who asked the Commonwealth Secretariat to help fill the near vacant field of legislative drafting around the Commonwealth. Courses have been implemented in the Caribbean and the Pacific as well as in Africa.

At the opening of the latest course in Ghana in Accra, Betty Mould–Iddrisu, Director of Legal and Constitutional Affairs at the Commonwealth Secretariat, noted many positive outcomes from the programme.

They include the creation of text books and course materials by the Secretariat and the development of post-training support mechanisms and strategies in the form of a drafting manual.

She also reported that ministers of justice and their heads of drafting offices from Commonwealth African countries at the Law Ministers conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in July 2008, assured her they found that their staff who had participated in the course were able to work on their own and required little supervision.

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• Law
• Country Profile: Ghana