Why Legislative Drafting Is No Longer Just About Form (F. Ponte)

This contribution analyzes recent developments in legislative drafting through a comparison between the fourth edition of the Italian Manual OLI, a regional legislative drafting handbook adopted by Italian Regions, and the ISO 24495-2:2025 standard on plain language in legal communication. While the OLI Manual consolidates and expands regional drafting practices, integrating impact assessment, public consultation and legislative communication tools, the ISO standard adopts a universal and communication-centred approach. The contribution argues that, although ISO standards are not suited to guide legislative drafting as such, they may provide useful insights for legislative communication instruments within a broader framework of regulatory quality.

Between late 2024 and early 2025, the fourth edition of the document "Rules and Suggestions for Drafting Legislative Texts for the Regions" was published, promoted by the Conference of Presidents of the Legislative Assemblies of the Regions and Autonomous Provinces and with the scientific support of the Interregional Legislative Observatory (the so-called OLI manual). Since its first edition in 1991, it has established itself as the standard for formal regional drafting . Now it's something more.

Leafing through the manual, one notices that the central and fundamental element, namely the section on formal drafting , has remained virtually unchanged. The rules, consolidated over decades of regional practice, remain constant, with the exception of certain key paragraphs that have been enriched, especially in the appendix " Examples and Explanations for the Application of the Rules." This is the case with gender-related non-discriminatory expressions, for which it is necessary to pay attention to the specific case and, in any case, problematize the issue. Or again, with definitions, where the term to be defined is often (think of the topics of flora and fauna) not only in Italian and Latin but also, as an element of regional identity, in dialect.

The formal drafting rules are also enhanced by a standard form for drafting regulatory provisions. With the stated aim of standardizing drafting techniques, including for the benefit of database searches and certainty of interpretation, the standard provides drafters with templates for provisions, both general (repeals, extensions, and suspensions, transitional coordination provisions, authentic interpretations, etc.) and specific to the specificities of the regions (establishment of lists, registers, and boards, interregional agreements, implementation of commitments to amend legislation undertaken with the Government, etc.).

The most innovative part is found in some of the appendices, which go beyond formal drafting , but also substantive drafting. The link between form and substance is ensured by the guidelines for assessing the impacts of regional legislation (with particular attention to evaluation clauses), the guidelines for public consultations (although they reiterate the 2017 Senate guidelines ), and the provision of training clauses (legislative provisions that mandate training courses for personnel responsible for implementing the law). The appendix regarding the use of IT tools to improve the quality of the legislative text has historical, reconstructive, and descriptive value, but fails to engage operationally with a recent underdog, artificial intelligence.

Finally, two further aspects deserve to be recalled which, rising to the rank of "General principles for the drafting of legislative texts" (this is how the drafting manual opens), run throughout the text. The first is the principle of administrative sustainability, according to which a law must be formulated "so that public administrations can concretely and effectively apply it" (paragraph 1.6 bis). This seems to mean at least that the legislative act contains all the elements necessary to produce the effects for which it was adopted (e.g., avoiding referrals to unnecessary implementing acts); but also that the administration, as a body, is put in a concrete position to be able to implement it (e.g., through formative clauses or by providing specific guidelines and instructions). The principle does not appear to extend, at least openly, to the idea of co-designing the act with that part of the administration that will actually be called upon to implement it, but it seems that the path taken could indeed lead in that direction.

The second significant aspect is the affirmation of the principle that legal certainty depends not only on legislative technique upstream but also, downstream, on legislative communication (paragraph 1.10 bis). This provision is echoed by an entire appendix dedicated to public institutional communication, aimed at facilitating widespread understanding and therefore easy application of the legislative text. The tool identified is "information sheets," designed to provide guidance upon first reading, independent of political communication.

From another perspective, one could say that the novelty of the fourth edition of the OLI manual is its doubling of its intended audience. The manual has been and continues to be a tool developed by drafters (or legists, according to a more ancient formulation) for drafters , but today it also speaks to policymakers . Some of its sections lack the immediate applicability that characterizes working tools, but instead have the inspiration of proposals for legislators: it would be unimaginable to implement consultations or use artificial intelligence in legislative assemblies without legislative or regulatory backing.

Elsewhere, I have described the fourth edition of the manual as "transitional" (Ponte, 2026), as it faces many challenges: the aforementioned consultation and AI, but also the standardization of formulas that can, to some extent, be shared with the State. On the other hand, in the future, it will be essential to consider issues such as the coverage and drafting of financial provisions, generational and gender impact assessment (echoing the themes of Law No. 167 of 2025 ), or addressing ISO 24495-2:2025 Plain language – Part 2: legal communication .

The OLI manual, in fact, does not exhaust the 2025 innovations that impact the drafting of regulatory documents: ISO 24495-2:2025 Plain language – Part 2: legal communication , which integrates (and therefore should be read in conjunction with) ISO 4495-1:2023 Plain language – Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines , is a slightly later development. Regarding this document, it is useful to focus on two aspects. The first is its universalistic vocation: both in the sense that, representing an international standard, it aims to offer common rules beyond the legal system in which the rules are placed, and in its ambition to cover every type of legal document, from statutes to contracts to simple correspondence. The second element that immediately catches the eye, starting from the title, is the idea that law must be conceived as communication, even before being an act capable of creating rights and obligations. Furthermore, the person with whom we communicate is an extremely "concrete" subject: not only must we take into account the background and the needs for which he or she must know the text, but we must also keep in mind the emotional state he or she might be in and, consequently, his or her ability to understand the text itself.

To achieve this goal, ISO identifies a process through the needs of the reader of legal texts: (1) readers get what they need (relevant), (2) readers can easily find what they need (findable), (3) readers can easily understand what they find (understandable) , and (4) readers can easily use the information (usable) . This process is therefore broken down and, for each point, provides suggestions on how to satisfy the reader's needs.

The ISO standard in question has the merit of addressing a problem—that of the complexity of legal language and its deplorable resistance to change—that is forcefully highlighted, not on a local but global scale. Moreover, even recently, attempts have been made to quantify the "cost" of the (poor) legislative quality of the legal system ( Morelli, Guiso, Michelacci, Giommoni, 2025 ). Beyond this result, however, the document in question does not seem suitable for inclusion in the legislative drafter 's toolbox: both quantitatively (the contents are substantiated in less than 20 pages, compared to the nearly 200 of the OLI manual), and qualitatively, lacking practical and concrete guidelines for the operators who would otherwise be required to implement it (in exchange for paying—note—the price of 100 CHF).

In essence, the law, due to its position in the hierarchy of sources and its (tendentially) general and abstract nature, is a candidate for being the instrument with the greatest number of classes of addressees: this makes it almost impossible to adopt a plurality of languages aimed at speaking to each of them. Leafing through the document, it becomes clear that many of its provisions are eccentric with respect to the nature and structure of legal texts (consider the use of images, icons, or colors) or conflict with common rules of legislative technique (consider drafting titles in the form of questions or providing laws with an introduction). Still others are related to legal policy (consider the opportunity of using a "participatory" lawmaking process). Those that remain are, by and large, already part of the legislative technique of many civil law and common law systems, where they have already been refined.

On the other hand, Plain language itself, which gives its name to the ISO, represents an element taken into consideration in the drafting of legislative acts, but which is placed at the lowest level of the pyramid of values that should govern the quality of legislative texts ( Xanthaki, 2014 ). In other words, it is desirable that the drafter take into account and apply the principles of plain language – with the same commitment with which he or she must pursue a language that is respectful of gender issues – but only to the extent that this does not collide with values considered superior, such as efficacy , effectiveness , efficiency (whose meaning is not exactly superimposable on the literal translation, therefore it is preferable not to translate them), clarity, precision, and univocity. What is not desirable is to build the house starting from the roof, assuming that plain language is in and of itself considered the solution to every ill-health in the quality of legislation. However, in the presence of a plurality of solutions, all equally suitable for satisfying a legislation that “works”, the one that respects the plain language should be preferred.

While, as we have attempted to illustrate, the ISO in question is unable to provide significant input into the drafting of regulatory documents, it appears that the drafter of information sheets ( as proposed in the appendices of the OLI manual and discussed at the outset) may find interesting insights therein, especially considering that public legislative information is still largely unexplored territory. The ISO proposal seems to be better connected to the linguistic strategies of simplification rather than those of easification ( Pennisi, 2024 ). The former means a reduced, informative version of the legal text, devoid of legal value and therefore able to take the specific recipient into account, while the latter affects the drafting of the regulatory text, without affecting its legal nature (legislative, regulatory, etc.).

That said, it's not intended to argue that the quality of legislative texts is such that they don't require corrections or improvements. On the contrary, legislation appears to be affected by multiple problems, many of which can be traced back to its drafting. Nonetheless, the ISO standard discussed here doesn't appear capable of offering solutions, its role being limited—at best—to a tool (albeit a prestigious and international one) for advancing the issue.

Finally, a further push towards improved legislative quality comes from the update of the rule of law criteria adopted by the Venice Commission on 12-13 December 2025. Although some indications and references to clarity and precision were already found in the 2016 version , it is now peremptorily stated that " Obstacles to the effective implementation of the law can occur […] because the quality of legislation makes it difficult to implement. " (para. 39) and shortly before that " The quality of law depends to a large extent on the quality of the legislative process " (para. 34). In this way, it is not only reaffirmed that legislative technique directly influences the implementation of the law (thereby reiterating that the latter is not limited to the communicative dimension, but is closely linked to the performative dimension of law), but also that this cannot be kept separate from the legislative process (and therefore from the law of legislative assemblies), invoking the need for reflection to also address the link with it.

Federico Ponte, Ph.D.

Regional Council Official of the Legislative Assembly of Liguria

Email: feder.ponte@gmail.com

The opinions expressed are personal