Foreword
Laws and regulations have an impact on all aspects of everyday life. While good regulation contributes to well-functioning markets and societies, poor regulation may undermine them by imposing undue costs on businesses and citizens.
In the MENA region, good regulation is increasingly recognised as a precondition for strengthening the rule of law and building more resilient societies. The Arab Republic of Egypt has placed an emphasis on pursuing regulatory reform and prepared the first Egyptian legislative drafting guide to promote uniform quality in rulemaking.
This report sheds light on the role of legislative drafting guides in enhancing regulatory quality and good governance, and provides evidence from OECD and MENA countries on the preparation and implementation of the legislative drafting guides. In particular, the report assesses Egypt’s legislative drafting guide in light of the 2016 OECD-MENA Regional Charter for Regulatory Quality, the 2012 OECD Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance and international good practices. It then makes specific policy recommendations to guide the implementation of the Egyptian Legislative Drafting Manual.
This report builds on the OECD’s expertise and policy knowledge acquired through dialogue among peer-countries in its Public Governance and Regulatory Policy Committees, its networks in the MENA-OECD Governance Programme, as well as the OECD instruments that codify good practices and standards in regulatory policy and public governance. In particular, the 2012 OECD Recommendation of the Council on Regulatory Policy and Governance sets out the principles of good regulatory governance and calls for open, transparent and inclusive processes in rulemaking to ensure that regulations serve the public interest.
The report is part of the MENA Transition Fund Project “The Rule of Law in Egypt” under the G7 Deauville Partnership, implemented in partnership with the Ministry of Justice of Egypt, the OECD and the African Development Bank. It is based on the findings of peer-to-peer exchanges, capacity-building activities, technical workshops and a series of study visits to OECD countries, including Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, which have been conducted since 2014. It is addressed to Egyptian officials in charge of legal drafting and regulatory policy. The OECD would like to thank the government officials and OECD peers for their commitment to the partnership, as well as the MENA Transition Fund of the G7 Deauville Partnership for their financial support.