Skills of Legislative Drafting and Judgment Writing Notes | B.B.A. LL.B. (Five Years) Semester 10 | SPPU | munotes

Contents

Module 01 The Basics of Legislative Drafting

1. What Legislative Drafting Is 1
2. The History of Legislative Drafting in England and India 5
3. The Theory of Legislative Drafting: Foundations, Characteristics and Objectives 10
4. Characteristics of Legal Language 14
5. The Legislative Draftsman: Role, Skills, Position and Duties 22
6. Supreme Legislation 27
7. Subordinate and Delegated Legislation 30
8. Statutes: Meaning and Classification 34
9. Codifying and Consolidating Statutes 42
10. The Four Kinds of Bill Compared 47
11. How an Ordinary Bill Is Passed 50
12. How a Bill Becomes Law: Parliament and the Karnataka Legislature 55
13. Bills in the House: Introduction, Committees, Debate and Passing 60
14. Drafting Delegated Legislation: Limits and Cautions 66
15. The Anatomy of a Bill, Part by Part, and the Papers That Travel With It 72
16. A Complete Bill: a Model State Bill With Its Statement of Objects and Reasons 77
17. Amendment Bills: Substitute, Insert, Omit, and the Principal Act 85
18. A Complete Amendment Bill 89
19. Commencement of Statutes 93
20. The Legislative Scheme: From a Clear Proposal to a Skeleton Bill 100
21. The Steps in Legislative Drafting 104
22. Constitutional Values and Provisions, and the Draftsman 109
23. The Basic Techniques: Style, Simple Language, Over-Drafting and Vagueness 114
24. Plain Language Drafting: What It Is, and Why the Law Now Asks for It 118
25. Plain Language Techniques: Twelve Ways to Make a Legal Text Clear Without Changing What It Does 122
26. The Diseases of Language, and How a Draftsman Treats Them 128

Module 02 Structure and style

1. Grammar and Punctuation for the Drafter 133
2. Grammar: the Sentence and Its Parts 137
3. The Legislative Sentence: Principal Subject, Principal Predicate and Modifiers 141
4. Understanding a Statute: The Parts of an Act 145
5. Provisos, Explanations, Illustrations, Non Obstante Clauses and Deeming Provisions 153
6. Common Phrases in Legislation and What Each Does 163
7. The Non Obstante Clause, and the Curative or Ganga Clause 167
8. Legal Fiction 173
9. Definitions, Illustrations, Exceptions, Provisos and Saving Clauses 178
10. Interpretation of Directory and Mandatory Provisions 183
11. Drafting Sections: Sentences, Paragraphing, Numbering and Linking 190
12. Incorporation by Reference: Borrowing Another Act 194
13. Organising a Legislative Text: The Outline of a Bill 199
14. Good Legislative Style, and Gender-Neutral Drafting 203
15. Legal Writing: Its Principles 207
16. Language and Law 215

Module 03 Working within limits

1. Working Within Limits: Interpretation and the Interpretation Acts 224
2. Statutory Interpretation and the Draftsman 228
3. What Interpretation Is, and Why It Is Needed 233
4. Rules of Interpretation Are Not Rules of Law: the Courts' Function and Its Limits 237
5. Context, Fringe Meaning and Beneficial Construction 241
6. The Literal Rule 249
7. The Golden Rule 256
8. The Mischief Rule, or the Rule in Heydon's Case 262
9. The Purposive Approach 270
10. The Compromise Approach: Text and Context Together 275
11. The Rule of Harmonious Construction 279
12. Casus Omissus: Why a Court Does Not Fill a Gap 286
13. Presumptions in Statutory Interpretation 293
14. Statutes Are Presumed to Be Valid: the Presumption of Constitutionality 301
15. Prospective Application and Retrospective Effect 306
16. Taxing Statutes, Penal Statutes and Welfare Legislation 313
17. Internal Aids to the Interpretation of a Statute 321
18. External Aids to the Interpretation of a Statute 334
19. Legislative History and Parliamentary Debates 343
20. The General Clauses Act 1897: What It Is, and Its Definitions 348
21. General Rules of Construction under the General Clauses Act 355
22. Powers, Functionaries and Subordinate Legislation under the General Clauses Act 363
23. The Miscellaneous Provisions of the General Clauses Act 372
24. Repeal of Statutes, and the Provisions Dealing with Repeal under the General Clauses Act 381
25. The Draftsman's Rules: Words, Definitions, Provisos, Explanations, and the General Clauses Act 389

Module 04 Judgment

1. What a Judgment Is and What It Is For: Meaning, Purpose, Framework and Features 394
2. Judgments: What a Judgment Is, and What the Codes Require of One 398
3. Reading a Judgment: Case Analysis 403
4. How a Civil Judgment Is Written: Issues, Points, Findings, Reasons and the Operative Order 410
5. A Complete Civil Judgment 415
6. How a Criminal Judgment Is Written: Points for Determination, Reasons, and the Hearing on Sentence 423
7. A Complete Criminal Judgment in a Section 138 Case 432
8. Reasoned Decisions 445
9. Orders: Interim Orders, Speaking Orders, and the Order Sheet 450
10. Judicial Reasoning, not Calculation 458
11. The Gap in the Law 462
12. How a Judge Reasons: Syllogistic, Inferential and Intuitive Processes 466
13. Deductive Reasoning 470
14. Inductive Reasoning 475
15. What a Categorical Syllogism Is 480
16. The General Rules of the Syllogism 487
17. Deduction and Induction in the Courts 494
18. Cardozo and the Nature of the Judicial Process 500

Module 05 The art of writing a judgment

1. Judicial Modesty, Moderation and Neutrality in a Judgment 504
2. Brevity, Simplicity and Clarity: Writing a Judgment Well 508
3. The Content and Language of a Judgment, and Its Psychological and Technical Side 512
4. Correcting a Judgment or Order: Section 152 of the Code and Section 403 of the Sanhita 517
5. Writing a Judgment Before, During and After the Hearing 522