Bilika Simamba is a busy man.
Cayman, like many small British Overseas Territories and jurisdictions worldwide, has legislation that is constantly being amended as economic times shift, new requirements are met and Britain demands the modernisation of its constitution, and by extension, its laws.
Mr. Simamba, as a senior legislative drafter, is a member of a profession that wields the pen, or rather the keyboard, which turns the whims of politicians, the advice of legal
departments or the demands of a mother nation into legislative reality.
And now, in an effort to teach others the intricacies of drafting laws and to simplify and demystify it, he has turned his many years of knowledge working in legislative processing into a book.
Mr. Simamba’s The Legislative Process, A Handbook for Public Officials was featured at a reading and book signing at Books & Books last week, drawing an audience of lawyers,
students, legal librarians and journalists.
He discussed how he came to write the 231-page book and gave a summarised version of what was in it.
Mr. Simamba, who works in the Cayman Islands Legal Drafting Department, stressed that his comments did not relate specifically to Cayman or his department, but rather were general comments relating to Commonwealth jurisdictions.
The day before he gave his talk at Books & Books, Mr. Simamba had a late night, sitting at the Legislative Assembly until almost midnight while legislators voted to pass bills to amend two laws.
Early in the book, he addresses the ongoing shortage of qualified and experienced drafters in developing countries and jurisdictions at a time which the need for amending laws is growing.
“As soon as the constitution is enacted, you have to go through all the laws to make sure they are not in violation of the new legal order.
“Usually that is done in a special exercise. It is difficult to do it effectively and within the time which you have. There is a shortage of drafters, which is very common in many countries,” he said.
Mr. Simamba is one of five legislative drafters in his department. He trained as a legal drafter in Lusake, Zambia, in the United Kingdom and Canada and has drafted laws in four Commonwealth jurisdictions – the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guyana and Zambia.
It took him six years to write the book, which is the first in a series of three.
“What prompted me to write it is in all my years of writing legislation, I found the persons who gave me instructions and proposals to write laws did not have any knowledge of the legislative process,” he said. “They expected the proposals to be made today and drafted tomorrow.”
He recommends the book to anyone who works in government or the public sector, as well as lawyers, journalists and law students.
“I am hoping that small countries, some overseas territories and small countries in the Caribbean and elsewhere who do not have enough resources to develop their own legislative guidelines would be able to take this book and be able to work through it and make it jurisdiction-specific,” he said.
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