Pre-Legislative Consultation: The Key to Achieving Greater Democratic Legitimacy

Law-making in India is a process shrouded in mystery. It is often disorganised with new laws being introduced on the fly. The absence of a proper pre-legislative consultation process makes the system superficial and unmethodical. There is a need to mandate pre-legislative public consultation which is to be implemented prior to drafting of a bill. Consultations on potential laws help ensure effectiveness and efficiency. This paper deals with how pre-legislative consultations make laws better and more inclusive. It aims to establish and reiterate the importance of pre-legislative consultation and the need for subsequent deliberation. This is done by exploring the drawbacks of the Indian law making processes, comparing legislations with and without a consultative process while further reiterating the benefits of consultation and deliberation processes. The objective of this paper is to ascertain how a more comprehensive pre-consultative policy is essential to make laws in India more inclusive and practical.