Law, Development, and Legislative Drafting in English-Speaking Africa

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Periodical article

Title:	Law, Development, and Legislative Drafting in English-Speaking Africa
Author:	Seidman, Robert B.
Year:	1981
Periodical:	Journal of Modern African Studies
Volume:	19
Issue:	1
Period:	March
Pages:	133-161
Language:	English
Geographic term:	English-speaking Africa
Subjects:	legal terminology legislation Law, Human Rights and Violence Politics and Government Development and Technology
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/160609
Abstract:	Legislation in the former British colonial territories exhibited a pair of paradoxes. First, it spoke in legalese, a patois that only judges and lawyers can read easily. Many laws concerning development, however, addressed ordinary citizens. Second, drafters invented and used a specialised style to reduce official and judicial discretion by. making legislation more precise, but this frequently endowed officials with discretion as broad as the unbroken sky. In Africa, the uses of legalese seemed to war with the purposes for which it was developed: The paradoxes of legislative language in Africa - The origins of legalese and parliamentary drafting - Colonial drafting - Drafting in independent Africa - Alternative modes of drafting - Conclusion. Ref.