When implementing anti-corruption policies, new or amended laws can provide the legal framework to underpin policy changes. ACAs are often mandated to perform (or participate in) legislative drafting in areas linked to anti-corruption policies. In some cases, they are also tasked with anti-corruption screening of other legislation (e.g. for early detection of loopholes in draft legal acts that may create room for corruption), possibly as part of ex-ante regulatory impact assessment.
Too often, legislative drafting takes place prematurely and policy is shaped by the drafting process rather than the reverse. Furthermore, a key feature of actual legislative drafting is to ensure that no conflicts are created with existing legislation. For this reason, the technical aspects of legislative drafting are best left to staff from the Ministries of Justice, who should have the explicit responsibility to ensure overall national legislative harmony. The ACA’s ideal role in this process is to formulate the desired policy goals and verify that the proposed legal language satisfies those policy objectives – including compliance with relevant international obligations. At a minimum, an ACA should coordinate extensively with the relevant unit of the Ministry of Justice, as well as have the internal capacity necessary to produce good quality legal drafting/advice. This function requires:
