The cradle of laws: drafting and negotiating bills within the executives in Central Europe

Cover -- Introduction: The role of governments in drafting and negotiating bills -- Modern trends in drafting and negotiating bills -- Models for drafting legislation -- Centralised v decentralised drafting -- Prioritising Legislation -- Quality and harmonisation of legislative expression -- Professionalism in drafting -- Drafting and policy-making -- Main legislative actors -- Cross-cutting issues -- Conclusions: What is best? -- Austria -- Introduction -- The Austrian political system and its effect on governments' legislative freedom -- The negligible role of the Austrian president -- The informal powers of the Austrian Länder -- Austria's consociationalist and neo-corporatist tradition -- The shadow of the Constitutional Court -- The legal framework for preparing governmental bills -- The drafting and negotiating of governmental bills in practice -- Administration-government relations -- Intra-governmental coordination -- The fate of governmental bills -- Conclusion -- The Czech Republic -- Introduction -- Overview of the constitutional and political system -- Legal and institutional framework of the law-making process -- Role of the government in preparatory phase of legislative process -- Initiation stage -- Drafting and negotiating stage -- Governmental bills in the parliamentary phase -- Conclusion -- Germany -- Introduction -- Overview of the German constitutional and political system -- The basic framework of the legislative process -- The practice of drafting and negotiating governmental bills in Germany -- The fate of governmental bills in the parliament -- Conclusion -- Hungary -- Introduction -- Overview of the constitutional and political system -- Legal and institutional framework for the preparation of legislation -- Sources of law and their role in the legal system -- Legal sources on legislative drafting.