Accra, July 9, GNA - The Chief Justice, Mrs. Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, on Monday called on legislative drafters to come out with laws which are explicit, clear and easily understood so that they could be obeyed by the public.
Mrs. Justice Wood noted that if many people understood and obeyed laws, there would be less infraction, thereby reducing the numerous cases before the courts.
Addressing 25 participants at this year's Commonwealth Legislative Drafting Course for African Jurisdiction in Accra, Mrs. Wood appealed to them to assist their respective countries to draft concise, precise, clear, unambiguous, direct and simple laws that could be easily understood and interpreted to uphold the rule of law. The training programme is in response to the request made by Commonwealth countries to redress the perennial shortage of legislative drafters.
Mrs. Wood noted that legislative drafting was a very important subject because it affected all arms of government. "Indeed, the product of the work of legislative draftsmen and women is even more important to the general public as it is transformed from bills to statutes through Parliament." According to her, the public, corporate bodies and institutions organized their business and conduct in accordance with law, that is, statute law.
In this regard, the Chief Justice said modern approach to simplify language used in legislative drafting was highly commendable. Mrs. Justice Wood said judges were also interested in the work of draftsmen and women as well as legislators because statutes formed an important tool in their judicial profession, as they were to uphold, apply and interpret laws. She told the participants that their involvement would impact on the society.
"The domino effect of the rule of law is clearly noticeable and democratic governance leads to political stability." "For developing economies, that in turn paves the way for increased foreign direct investments, economic growth and development and consequently poverty reduction."
Mr Kwame Osei-Prempeh, Deputy Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, said one of the problems of jurisdictions was the inability to draft laws and urged participants to take advantage of the training programme to sharpen their skills and become experts in drafting of laws.
Mr Osei-Prempeh said law was a source of light for every nation hence the need to train more drafters to facilitate good governance. Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Director, Legal and Constitutional Affairs of the Commonwealth Secretariat, said the shortage of drafters did not only affect commonwealth countries but the Caribbean and the Pacific states as well.
She said the Commonwealth Secretariat was therefore holding programmes of drafting at the request of Law Ministers. Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu appealed to the Ministry of Justice to upgrade the Ghana School of Law Library with materials for research as well as computers with Internet facilities.
