The Programme in Legislative Drafting provides you with the requisite skills and competencies to produce clear, effective and implementable legislation and directives that comply with the requirements of the Constitution and based on the Commonwealth system of legislative drafting. Specifically aimed at legislative drafters in government, compliance officers, drafting consultants in private practice, as well as drafters of rules and regulations for other organs of state and/or parastatal bodies, this programme will provide you with the necessary confidence to appropriately translate policy guidelines to new primary and secondary legislation, including the amendment of existing legislation or drafting of new legislation.

After successfully completing this programme, you will be able to
• translate policy guidelines into new primary and secondary legislation
• amend existing legislation
• draft new legislation (both original and delegated), and amend existing legislation (including old-order legislation) against the background of the Supreme Constitution and the vast array 
  of existing law (including common law and customary law), and
• draft new legislation within the framework of the Constitution as well as other existing law.

• Legislative processes in South Africa: the constitutional framework
• Conventional approaches to drafting of legislation
• Analysis and structure of original legislation
• Analysis and structure of amending legislation
• Principles of drafting
• Cleaning-up of legislation
• From better legislative drafting to more efficient statutory interpretation: a practical guide
• Drafting of subordinate legislation
• Drafting of Local Government legislation (municipal bylaws)
• Influence of the basic principles of administrative law on legislative drafting

Programme structure
Option 1: Class contact sessions
You can attend 15 evening class sessions (one session per week) from 18:00, every Tuesday evening at the University of Pretoria, Hatfield Campus.

Option 2: Online training
The online training option has been designed to help accommodate the unique training needs of busy professionals who wish to complete our programme but are unable to attend classes on campus.

The Duration of the Programme consist of 15 contact days or 20 weeks online.