EU Better Law-Making Charter. Better Law-Making Programme

Building on work to date in its Better Law-making Programme, the Law Society published in November 2005 a Charter for Better Law-making within the EU. This document was prepared by the Society's EU Committee and sets out a number of ideas for improving the law-making processes and the quality of legislation itself within the EU. It is hoped that this will make a valuable contribution to the wider EU debate on this topic. The Law Society, through its EU committee, will continue to explore these issues further over the coming 12 months.

The Charter looks at, for example:
How to improve on the way consultations are carried out by the EU institutions. It is necessary to ensure that the right people are consulted, that they are asked the right questions and their responses are considered adquately.

When and how impact assessments are made - what is their purpose and are they being used effectively as a tool to improve the quality of decision-making?

The consistency of legislation is of concern as there are number of examples EU measures that do not 'fit' well together. A number of improvements in the processes of law-making could help to avert such problems.