In collaboration with International Consortium for Law and Development  (ICLAD  www.iclad-law.org) we have began the development of a Lawmaking and Oversight Syllabus for e-learning modules. Laws represent the parliaments principal tool for addressing social and economic issues of our societies. Without well-designed, well-drafted, detailed rules, the best-intentioned law fails to transform the problematic institutions at which it aims.

There is a growing demand from parliaments to acquire the tools to be able to better and be part of the drafting process and also in oversight of the legislation already approved.

More in details:

• Members of Parliament need to be able to understand and appreciate the challenges and opportunities that are linked to the role of the law-making process in our society and political system.
• Parliamentary researcher must be able to support the work of MPs with the reports and evidence to support the design of any new legislation.
• Legislative drafters must be able to translate the general purposes of political leaders into the specific rules that prescribe behaviors.

The Syllabus will outline a series of modules meant to provide knowledge and skills needed to design and draft legislation that really respond to challenges and problems that our societies have to deal with.

Main modules will be:

• policy-making
• parliamentary research (evidence-based law-making)
• legislative drafting

We hope to have the draft Syllabus ready by May 2009 to be posted for discussion to the APKN mailing lists in order to finalise it and then begin the actual development of the e-learning modules.