Project description

The work of legislative lawyers receives hardly any attention in the academic literature on the legal professions. This is remarkable, considering that good lawmaking is vital to modern democracies. C-LAB researcher Nienke Doornbos and Arnt Mein (Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences) interviewed 25 legislative lawyers at five different government ministries in the Netherlands. Which coping mechanisms do they use to strike the right balance between democratic values and the Rule of Law, especially in times when populism plays such a significant role in politics? Do legislative lawyers feel any particular loyalty when it comes to upholding the law? What if government ministers demand new legislation that contravenes existing legal frameworks or violates international human rights norms?