Enhancing Palestinian Legislative Council’s Committee and legislative support services
Introduction:
The primary goal of any item of legislation is to maintain a public interest. To achieve the desired interest, a regulation should be applicable. This is the springboard of the legislative activity carried out by the PA. In practice, however, the Legislative Authority makes two types of legislation in terms of applicability. The first includes self-executing legislation and the second comprises legislative acts that are not self-executing. The latter requires that the Executive Authority issue forth regulations that delineate and render them applicable. Accordingly, the Executive is empowered to issue forth regulations that complement and expound enactments of the Legislature.
Added to this, many legal texts are deficient due to incompetent legislative drafting techniques, negatively reflecting on effective and realistic application relevant provisions. Another dominant problem is generated by failures and predicaments that impede the legislative process in the Palestinian territory. Throughout the previous PLC term, the legal reality did not match the practical legislation process. The new PLC, elected in 2006, has not also been successful in either controlling the legislative process or addressing relevant problems. On the contrary, problems have deteriorated further.
Overall objective:
This project is generally designed to promote the PLC role by upgrading the PLC staff performance and capacities in legislative drafting and RIA techniques. The project team will develop a guidance manual on the legislative process in the Palestinian territory. In light of the internal Palestinian political divide, the research team will address and diagnose the legislative status in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The process will highlight major legal positions and consequences generated by the political division as well as problems associated with dichotomous public authorities, particularly duplicate legislation passed during the reporting period. To help the PLC address the 2007-12 legislative acts, proper mechanisms, scenarios and remedies will be developed.
Specific objectives:
- Provide a legal review of regulations promulgated between 2007 and 2012 and attempt to develop needed recommendations to address them.
- Develop a report on the legislative status in the Palestinian territory.
- Enhance performance of PLC staff, particularly researchers and committee members, in the area of legislative drafting tools and legal text analysis.
- Compile an easy-to-use guidance manual on the legislative process.
Status of the project:
Ended
Donor:
UNDP
Team:
- Mahmoud Alawneh – Director
- Razan Barghouti- Researcher
- Ala Hamad- Researcher
- Nidal Barham
- Guidance Manual on the Legislative Process
- A background research paper on the legislative process and how the PLC deals with it
- Examine and analyse regulations issued between 2007 and 2012
- Provide training to PLC staff, including legal staff, committee support staff and researchers, on legislative drafting tools, legal text analysis and principles of legislative analysis