all right so let's quickly have a look at the drafting styles and conventions that i spoke about um because they obviously can't act willy-nilly in creating these pieces of legislation they still have to adhere to certain guidelines the legislature is responsible for developing policy and then ensuring that the legislation reflects that policy and this is called policy responsibility and as such policy development and legislative drafting are closely related and do not occur in a vacuum there is instructional manuals and guidelines on how to draft legislation so when drafting legislation at the primary stage of bills the legislature is subject to these guidelines or conventions for drafting and these conventions prepare the bill for introduction into parliament for example the legislation handbook is published by the department of prime minister and the cabinet and states that the attorney general's department should be consulted on legislative proposals which may be inconsistent with or contrary to an international instrument relating to human rights for example and this is an example of a few extrinsic sources from courts to gauge the intentions of parliament at a later time once the bill is passed into law and this process is therefore worthwhile to know for you guys the first drafting technique is a very general provision which allows the subsequent interpretation by courts the second drafting technique is to attempt to provide a clear and very comprehensive law which minimizes the scope of judicial interpretation and thus decreases the risk of judicial activism happening the second approach and we'll discuss that in more depth in the next topic the second approach is more closely aligned with strict formalism acknowledging the superior role of the legislatures these are the courts and making the law now let's look more specifically at this idea of drafting guidelines uh which um you know help the the parliaments um in their the presence of them creating law the draft acts and statutes also known as bills are commonly prepared by government lawyers who work in state and territory federal and federal offices of parliamentary council so they also draft subordinate legislation such as regulations and proclamations to government agencies and drafting is a challenging task and that's why there are so many guidelines and it also makes a challenging class to interpret at a later stage but let's have a look at this the nature of this task as mcload notes in his principles of lead slip and regulatory drafting book at page one published by heart publishing in 2009 so in his words he says the drafters task is to convert policies into provisions which comply with the relevance for more conventions and are capable of being applied effectively in practice complying with the relevant formal conventions to sell them if ever problematic but creating provisions which can be interpreted in only one way or another it is another matter the task of doctors in an ideal world would be to create provisions uh which not only have significant a single unequivocal meaning but which also communicate those meanings unfailingly to every single reader unfortunately the imperfections of the real world often prevent drafters from performing this task as fully as they and everyone else involved would wish the factors which give rise to a rather gloomy conclusion include the nature of language so it's porous the fallibility of drafters the reality of the political process the complexity of the subject matter with which the legislation deals with and the fact that many aspects of life commerce and technology to which law relates are constantly evolving which means that drafters may be trying to hit moving targets i think this sums up the challenges very well that we face as interpreters also that we discussed in week one so the nature of the language itself is ambiguous and poorest the relationship between author reader and the text is also uh quite uncertain because of the human condition afflicting everyone engaged in the process of establishing and accepting meaning the subject matter itself deals with a myriad of life's most essential issues and law regulates all manner of things but to capture all of them while still accounting for the changes and vicissitudes of life is quite an impossible task however our mission is to rise to the challenge as best we can and we'll do that in this unit so this is the reason most jurisdictions have guidelines to assist the drafters of legislation to produce bills which are most likely to be accepted in both houses of parliament uh and then to the general public and so in this in queensland this role falls to the office of parliamentary council as we spoke about earlier you should visit the website just to get a full understanding and have a look around so go in there and navigate the roles and responsibility of that particular office and it's always good to start at the official web page for where laws are first created so the office states on its home page its role is to support government and democracy by drafting and publishing legislation queensland and one of its principal objectives is to draft queensland legislation to the highest standard now the legislative standards act of 1992 in queensland provides drafting guidelines for the production of bills uh for introduction of parliament and this function of the office is to drop bills for the government for private members bills as well as drafting subordinate legislation so the guidelines and standards set by the legislation include fundamental principles which are said to underlie a parliamentary democracy based on the rule of law and this principle requires legislation to pay sufficient regard to the rights and liberties of individuals in the institution of parliament and you should make note at the stage of the fact that in determining whether or not sufficient regard has been taken to individual rights and liberties parliaments take note of the following three matters amongst others firstly is consistent with the principles of natural justice secondly allows the delegation of administrative powers only in appropriate cases and to appropriate persons so that's an extension of the separation of powers doctrine we discussed earlier thirdly does not reverse the ownership proof and criminal proceedings without adequate justification so they're trying to protect people who are vulnerable visa be the legal system you will consider these concepts are more deflated in the unit when we discuss presumptions that guide the interpretation of legislation all right so uh that concludes this section of the lesson but please have a look at my next section which looks into the parliamentary history in australia and the development of parliament particularly to more fully help us understand uh the the powers that convert to the parliament with regards to the creation of laws so thank you for joining me