The project for IT-supported procedure for drafting legislation (ITDL) was launched with a view to regulating the procedure for drafting and adopting legislation in the Republic of Slovenia; it was primarily focused on the parts that lacked IT support and covered all stages from planning to submitting a piece of draft legislation to the government for consideration. Ministries and government offices used to draft and coordinate regulations with other ministries, the Office of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia for Legislation and the interested public in line with their internal organisation of work and document management. With a view to implementing the principle of public participation in the process of drafting regulations, the Access to Public Information Act stipulates that a draft piece of legislation must be published on a website, but in practice some of the ministries failed to strictly observe this provision. By introducing an IT-supported procedure for drafting regulations and by adopting minimum standards for public consultations, the aforementioned principle was fully implemented. Under previous arrangements, regulations had to be submitted for the publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia in written form. Draft regulations, adopted regulations and unofficial consolidated texts were published on different sites (websites of ministries, the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, the website of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia, the website of the National Assembly, Register of Regulations, etc.). This scattered system lead to dissatisfaction among users and often caused undue prolongation of the drafting procedure; moreover, regulations were (too) frequently amended because of the lack of coordination with the interested public. The ITDL project delivered a system that addresses the essential steps of the procedure of adopting regulation as well as standardised the operations of all ministries involved in the process of drafting and adopting regulations, thereby facilitating easier and simpler exchange of documents and opinions. The system devotes considerable attention to integrating contributions by the interested public into the content of a regulation. The backend IT system for drafting regulations is linked to the e-democracy sub-portal, which offers a 'one-stop shop' enabling easy monitoring of the applicable regulations and regulations in drafting procedure, which is very important for users. Most importantly, this part is very useful for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as well as the professional and lay public, all of which can promptly make their comments and proposals, and thus contribute towards drafting better regulations. The ITDL system has ensured that all ministries follow a standardised procedure for drafting regulations in terms of substance and as regards technical features; it also introduced electronic services into the process of drafting legislation, which means that as of 1 April 2010, when the ITDL system was launched, paper is no longer used in drafting regulations.
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