Elita Chikwati Harare Bureau
Legislative drafting is critical to the nation and should be offered to new law officers at induction level to equip them with skills to translate policy into legislation, the Attorney General, Advocate Prince Machaya has said. He said this while officiating at the graduation ceremony of 52 state lawyers who completed a course on legislative drafting in Harare yesterday.

The training course was offered by the Attorney General’s Office and the Centre for Applied Legal Research (CALR) with support from the European Union.

The course was designed to provide advanced legal education and practical skills to state lawyers in the specialised legal discipline of legislative drafting.

Advocate Machaya said legislative drafting was a critical component for the nation especially now when the government was in the process of realigning laws to the new Constitution.

“Legislative drafting training has come at the right moment when the government is in the process of harmonising its laws with the Constitution, which was promulgated in 2013.

“This will have a positive effect upon the constitutional alignment exercise. Such training will accelerate the constitutional alignment process among other positive effects. This will equip our law officers with additional skills, he said.

Advocate Machaya said drafting of the legislation was one of the key functions of the AG but was not imparted in local law schools.

“Lawyers who do drafting acquire much of their skill through on-the-job training. While on-the- job training is the major forum to train drafters, there is need to impart the necessary drafting skill to those who are tasked with the drafting of the law of the country as an induction or starting point,” he said.

“Due to the exodus of drafters from the drafting division, the division found itself with new law officers from time to time. This means that the deputy AG has the task of continuously training new law officers at a time when government work requires attention as well. This situation, coupled with the lack of knowledge of the legislation formulation process, on the part of legal officers in the line ministries places a heavy burden on legislative division,” he said.

The EU head of delegation to Zimbabwe, Ambassador Philippe van Damme, said it was important that stakeholders work together for the success of the constitutional reform process.

“For the constitutional reform process to be successful, state actors, civil society, development partners and ordinary citizens should work together at all stages of the law making process to have good laws for the nation.

“We’re here to witness a demonstration of this partnership, co-ordination and support between government, civil society and the donor community,” he said.

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