Review: ODIHR Guidelines on Democratic Lawmaking for Better Laws

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Notes

1 OSCE ODIHR, ‘Guidelines on Democratic Lawmaking for Better Laws’ (2024) 2.

2 To name but a few examples on the recent publications of the OSCE ODIHR, ‘Public Ethics and Integrity Toolkit: Guidelines for Parliaments’ (2023); ‘Recommendations on Judicial Independence and Accountability (Warsaw Recommendations)’ (2023), ‘Handbook on Observing and Promoting Women’s Electoral Participation’ (2023), ‘Hate Crime Laws: A Practical Guide’. Revised Edition, (2022); ‘Strengthening the Resilience of National Human Rights Institutions Guidance Tool’ (2022); ‘Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development: Towards the Digital Age’ (Second Edition), (2021).

3 https://www.osce.org/odihr/552682.

4 The literature on the topic is vast. To mention some recent works, see Tímea Drinóczi, ‘Concept of Quality in Legislation—Revisited: Matter of Perspective and a General Overview’ (2015) 36(3) Statute Law Review 211–27 (proposing a concept of quality of law combining democratic procedural and effective policy-oriented substantive elements), Wim Voermans, Hans-Martien ten Napel and Reijer Passchier, ‘Combining efficiency and transparency in legislative processes’ (2017) 3 The Theory and Practice of Legislation 279–94 (on the usage of Information and Communications Technology in the legislative process); and Claudio Radaelli and Gaia Taffoni, ‘Better Regulation as Soft Law’ in Mariolina ELIANTONIO, Emilia KORKEA-AHO and Ulrika MÖRTH (eds.), Research handbook on soft law (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2023) 116–31 (on different levels of formalization and the mixture of hard law/soft law approaches to Better Regulation policies in the EU).

5 OSCE ODIHR, ‘Guidelines on Democratic Lawmaking for Better Laws’ (2024) 43.

6 OSCE ODIHR, ‘Guidelines on Democratic Lawmaking for Better Laws’ (2024) 47.

* Graduate, Master, and PhD in Public Law at the University of São Paulo Law School (USP). He was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University (USA) and a visiting student at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (Germany). Lawyer and tenured Legislative Counselor of the Brazilian Federal Senate. Lecturer at the Brazilian Institute of Education, Development, and Research (IDP).