Sir William Dale Memorial Issue

The sixth Sir William Dale Issue of the European Journal of Law continues the now established tradition of a dedicated issue on legislative drafting. The need to view the matter of quality of legislation as central in the law reform debate has been analysed in many of the articles hosted by the journal in the past. The quality of legislation agenda finds its forum with the journal as it reaches further than Europe and across traditional disciplinary borders. Emphasis in this issue, as indeed in the journal as a whole, is placed on the analysis of theoretical topics, but also applied analysis of issues related to legislative quality in lesser known jurisdictions. Rwanda is well represented this year, a unique opportunity to catch up with the legislative style there at a time where the legal system is transitioning from civil to common law. Samoa is represented in the journal for the first time thus offering our readers a unique insight in the doctrinal and empirical status of legislative drafting in the country. Asia and Africa are equally represented.
The message offered to our readers is the affirmation of our conviction that problems of legislative quality are evident across the board in all national, regional and international jurisdictions. The admittedly unfortunate division between first and second world, industrialized and non-industrialized or developed and developing countries simply does not apply in legislation and legislative drafting. Although few jurisdictions can claim to be novices in the drafting game, even fewer can claim excellence in the drafting techniques applied, in the legislative environment, and in the final product of legislative rules and regulation. This renders the need to reach outside our jurisdictional borders and far beyond our comfort zones imperative. And this is the unique contribution of this issue: the opportunity to reach out of known jurisdictions and to come into contact with innovative thinking and intellectual excellence in lesser known jurisdictions and drafting offices.
I am grateful to each and every of the national drafters who devoted much of their time in their work. I am proud to present to our readers one more Sir William Dale Issue, in the hope that it can shed light in recent developments around the world, while provoking much needed debate in the field of legislative drafting as a tool for regulation and ultimately law reform.