The Gujarat National Law University (GNLU) recently concluded its five-day National Legislative and Legal Documents Drafting Training Workshop 2012 (LDTW) which was held from January 25-29, 2012 at the GNLU campus.

The idea behind the LDTW was to allow the country's draftsmen to be trained by experts in the legal field such as academicians, senior bureaucrats and judges. Hence, participants ranged from The session was attended by eminent legal draft persons including Joint Secretaries, Additional Draftsmen and Municipal Commissioner from Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka and Chandigarh.

The participants were trained in subjects including the basic structure and format of legislative drafting and the various intricacies and difficulties of drafting retrospective and retroactive provisions. The participants were also educated on the rules of statutory and constitutional intepretation and how they should be kept in mind while drafting legislation.

The inauguration ceremony of the LDTW was graced by the former Dean, Dept of Law at MS University, Baroda, Prof.H.C Dholakia (pictured below, right). Professor N.R. Madhava Menon, the man often credited for the establishment of the five-year lawcourse, also attended the event. Other experts who conducted the training sessions included the Jt. Secretary of Lok Sabha, Deepak Mahna, Justice J.N Bhatt (Retd) of the Patna High Court, Justice C K Thakkar (Retd) of the Supreme Court of India and Vice Chancellor, NUJS Prof. Ishwar Bhat.

The valedictory was graced by Hon’ble Justice Bela Trivedi, Judge,High court of Rajasthan. A common line of though running throughout the event was the importance of good, clear and concise drafting and the responsibilities of those who undertook the duty of drafting.

The LDTW is an encouraing sign of greater cooperation between law schools and the government and it is hoped that similar endeavours by law schools across the country continue to increase.