Parliamentary innovations through post-legislative scrutiny

In this publication, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) provides practical guidance and examples to assist and enable systematic, focused, and methodologically based parliaments’ post-legislative activity.

The post-legislative scrutiny (PLS) is not a luxury item, but an important function in a governance system in accordance with the rule of law. Parliaments at various stages of their institutional development successfully implement the PLS. The principal issue for any parliament is not whether to conduct the PLS, but how to do it in the best way.

There is no single PLS plan in the parliamentary environment. Parliaments operate in different ways, and practice confirms that there are a lot of means to conduct PLS effectively.

This handbook aims to improve and expand parliaments' knowledge about PLS preparation, organization, and follow-up. The guidebook proposes new or additional parliamentary practices to increase the PLS effectiveness and to extend public outreach.

All rights in this survey, including copyright, belong to WFD and are protected by international and UK laws. The publication was prepared by Maria Mousmouti, Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Executive Director, Centre for European Constitutional Law, and by Franklin De Vrieze, Head of Practice (Accountability), WFD.

The translation of this publication into Ukrainian and the Ukrainian edition was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and conducted within the framework of the USAID RADA: Next Generation Program, a five-year initiative (2021–2026) implemented by Internews-Ukraine. The content of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the US Government.