Quality Control and Management in Legislation: A Theoretical Framework

Abstract

Abstract It is not enough to claim the quality of legislation. It has to be realized as well. The question is whether the general assumptions of quality management sytstems can, if at all and to what extent, be adopted to introduce and ensure a quality management of the legislative process. In the paper, based on the previously explained notion on the quality of legislation, a possible theoretical framework for quality management of legislation can be developed. First, the paper will offer an overview on quality management and its application. It will then discuss its applicability to the legislative process and the law making organs. The presumption is that the applicability is partial and it requires both a holistic and an organization-oriented approach, which is embedded in the context of constitutional democracy in which the legislative power intends and is capable of producing constitutional and effective laws. Possible indicators of measuring the quality of legislation are as follows: the measurement and analyzation of the political commitment toward better regulation policies, the existence of proper rules on legislation, the degree of compliance with these rules, the professional preconditions of being employed as a drafter, the training and the education, the drafting process itself, the occurrence of political and constitutional vetos, thier reasons and results, the decisions of the constitutional court or other judicial bodies on constitutionality, and the political reaction of the political decision-maker to these rulings. The main finding of this paper is that an adaptation of the underlying idea of quality management system is possible without standardizing the legislative process.