Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Monday that if a legislation is drafted well, the judiciary will not get an opportunity to overstep it. He said laws should be drafted in as simple and clear words as possible because difficult words always creates controversy. “Making a law that cannot be disputed for the next 25 years and the court does not need to intervene is a medal for drafting a good law,” Mr. Shah said.
He said Article 370 of the Constitution that provided special status to the former State of Jammu and Kashmir was a temporary provision and whoever drafted the law was sharp enough to insert the phrase “temporary” in the index.
“Any provision in the Constitution cannot be temporary. The written debates of the time when Article 370 was inserted are not available. Whoever drafted the law was sharp enough to add temporary provision against it,” the Minister said.
He said the spirit of “our languages” is important and as most laws are drafted in English, many a times the intent of the legislator is not reflected in the English version. He added that grey areas leave scope for encroachment and a legislation should be drafted in a manner that reflects the political will of the Cabinet or the Parliament. Words should be expanded to sentence
“Most laws are drafted in English but to reflect the spirit of our languages is very important. Many a times, the intent of the legislator doesn’t match gel with the English translation of the law. There are scores of examples, I don’t want to cite them here as it could lead to controversies. But there are many things, the intent of the legislator was something else and it appeared as something else due to English,” he said.
Mr. Shah made the remarks the inauguration of a training program on Legislative Drafting organised by PRIDE and ICPS for officers of Parliament, State Legislatures, various ministries, statutory bodies and other government departments in New Delhi. Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, Union Ministers Pralhad Joshi, Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhala were present on the occasion.
Mr. Shah said that legislative drafting is a crucial component of our democracy and lack of knowledge about it not only weakens the laws, but the entire democratic system and it also affects the functioning of the judiciary.
The Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that there are three main pillars of democracy – Legislature, Executive and Judiciary and our Constitution framers built our entire democratic governance system on these three pillars.
“The function of the Legislative Department is to formulate the political will of the Parliament and the Union Cabinet into law. If the drafting is better, it will be easier to educate about the law with minimal chances of errors by the executive. If grey areas are left in the drafting, it would lead to encroachment in interpretation, while, if the drafting is complete and lucid, its interpretation would also be clear,” he said.
He said that legislative drafting is not a science or an art, but it is a skill which has to be used with spirit.
“In the process of converting government policies into laws, it is necessary to study the old and least controversial laws. He said that writing is a skill and punctuation marks should be used with great care and skill in legislative drafting. Apart from this, the draftsman should also have good command over language because it is very important to reflect the spirit of our language. He said that every language has a limit and mere translation of the words will not work, but translation of the spirit should be done,” the Minister stated.
