LEGISLATIVE DRAFTING AND ONLINE CONSULTATION: A CONTRIBUTE TO LAWMAKING FOR BETTER REGULATION?

This paper deals with online consultation (also known as e-consultation or consultation by ICT) as a legislative drafting technique. As we all know, for some time at international level (see OECD's Papers on Better Regulation) consultations of the recipients of legal acts carried out within the regulatory cycle have been considered fundamental for a better regulation. Specific theoretical models and just as many IT programs have been retrieved from the literature on the matter and then studied in order to enhance consultations in the field of regulatory impact assessment activities. This paper deals mainly with the consultations by ICT. It intends to be an overall assessment of the state-of-the-art diffusion and regulation of the above-mentioned consultations. It also aims to establish whether and in which way the ICTs have improved the consultative activity and above all whether, perhaps, its diffusion has really improved the quality of law. Or whether, on the contrary, as has often happened in e-government practices, ICT alone cannot work magics in putting right all the shortcomings by way of excessively enthusiastic users in charge of implementing it.