Legal Framework and Governance in Developing Nations

This report provides a comprehensive overview of legal frameworks and their crucial role in country governance and development. It begins by defining the legal framework, outlining its components such as constitutions, policies, legislation, regulations, and contracts, and emphasizing the importance of a well-functioning legal system for a nation's prosperity. The report then delves into the main driving forces behind creating a legal framework, highlighting the significance of detailed laws and regulations in establishing a strong foundation for governance and achieving policy objectives. Furthermore, it examines the specific criteria for creating effective legal frameworks in undeveloped countries (Sudan), developing countries (India), and developed countries (New Zealand), considering factors such as conflict, poverty, economic development, and regulatory institutions. The report also addresses the importance of culture and tradition in shaping legal frameworks. Overall, the report underscores the importance of a strong legal framework for the rule of law, economic growth, and social well-being.

Leadership and Governance

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Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
Legal Framework..................................................................................................................................2
Main driving forces in creating a legal framework for a country...........................................................5
Criteria’s for creating a legal framework for undeveloped country - Sudan..........................................7
Criteria’s for creating a legal framework for developing country - India...............................................8
Criteria’s for creating a legal framework for developed country – New Zealand................................10
Importance of culture and tradition in legal framework.......................................................................11
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................14
References...........................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
A well-functioning legal system is a very important condition for a nation’s prosperity. The
rule of law is a factor which cannot be eliminated and does contribute towards wealth and
economic growth of a nation.
This document covers the description about the Legal Framework, how it is formed and the
aspects around it, further it studies the criteria’s that are required for creation of an effective
legal framework in an undeveloped country, in a developing country and in a developed
country, this will be followed by the study if cultural and traditional factors should be
considered while creating a legal framework.
For effective functioning of a society, legal rules and regulations are very important, and
these rules and regulations are found in the legislation. It covers a wide range of activities and
functioning areas like, the rules for creating and maintaining a society structure, rules that
regulate the individual relations, rules that regulate the modern industrial society activities,
rules for providing services that benefit the society development, rules that manage the
private company activities, rules about taxation, rules for public services, and rules for the
establishment of institutions that manage these activities (WJP Project, 2017).
Legal Framework
The legal framework of a country can be defined as a set of rules that create a framework of
how to govern a country, these set of rules are the basic building blocks of a country. This
legal framework consists of legal documents which mentions about the rules, rights,
restrictions and obligations of companies, citizens and governments. The documents of a
legal framework also include constitution of a country, policy, jurisdiction, legislation,
contracts and the regulations. Constitution is a legal document that covers broad principles
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and is very difficult to be changed. On the other hand, amendment is easier with the other
legal documents as laws and contracts. The countries that describe the laws and policies in
detail are more stable in terms of managing the legal framework.
Whatever projects get implemented in a country are governed by the rights of governments,
companies and citizens, as mentioned in the legal documents. Authority for making these
rules and regulations and under which legal document it should be covered, is not a uniform
decision and varies from country to country (Posner, 1998). The architecture of a well-
designed legal system provides rules for structuring of state institutions, acquiring of
companies and managing the licenses, terms of payments among companies and states,
management of the environment, rules governing extractive projects and neighbouring
communities, conduct of public officials, disclosure of public information and its
accountability, and rules for the government on how to manage the revenue of natural
resources. Companies starting a setup in a country should always follow the country’s
compliance and the rules of the legal framework.
A legal hierarchy shows the relation of one legal document with the other. The legal
documents include the constitution, legislation, regulations, and contracts.
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Con
trac
ts
Rules and
Regulations /
Model Contracts
Policy / Legislation
Constitution

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The hierarchy of the documents in a legal framework moves from the bottom of the pyramid
to the top and each instrument of the hierarchy gets more detailed and more specific as it
moves to the top. Each instrument is required to be consistent with the earlier instrument of
the hierarchy. The below mentioned instruments take a precedence than the above ones in a
legal speak. Each instrument of the pyramid can be defined as below
Constitution - A constitution defines the structure of the government, how it should
be formed and also defines the rights and responsibilities of government and the citizens. It is
the supreme legal instrument of all the legal instruments of a country. The constitution is very
difficult to be amended and required super majority approvals in the legislature.
Policy and Legislation - The policy is the set of strategies that govern the behaviours
of each sector. Legislation is the set of rules that govern the vision of forming a policy. There
are countries that define the set of principles and goals under the petroleum or mineral sector
policies that govern all other rules, regulations and activities. The approving authority for
each policy is different, some needs approval from the national legislature while the others
might be approved by the executive only. A well-designed policy is the one which is made
after stakeholder consultations and which provides a clear and detailed explanation of public
strategy (Institute, 2015).
Regulations and model Contracts - The executive government body creates the
rules for making legislation practical, and these implementing rules are the regulations.
Regulation is mostly combined with a law but provides more detail as compared to the law.
The legislation provides guidelines for what needs to be covered in the regulation. An
agreement between the government and the extractive companies is the model contract,
which provides a template for the agreement.
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Contracts - A contract is defined as an agreement between two or more parties. All
other instruments of the legal framework are applicable to every individual, but a contract
applies only to the parties involved in the particular contract.
Main driving forces in creating a legal framework for a country
There are few countries that work on very specific constitution, laws and regulations that
provide rules to govern industries. Hence, in such countries very less information is
mentioned in the contracts and very less scope is left with the government and companies to
negotiate in the deal. This means that the country which provides detailed laws and
regulations, leaves the government to mention fewer terms in the contract. On the other hand,
another country that does not provide detailed laws and regulations, and hence the
government will be left to cover many terms in each contract. It is generally suggested that
the countries which mention detailed laws and regulations create a stronger foundation for the
country, and makes it easier for the government to manage the regulations and national
priorities (Weingast, 2008).
A strong detailed legal framework and the governance increase the legitimacy and integrity
of the country’s legal regulators, it also provides strong support to the policy objectives and
leads to good results. The social, economic and environmental policy goals and objectives of
all the governments can be effectively achieved through strong regulations. Governments of
all the nations have multiple rights and powers to address to the diverse requirements of the
citizens, communities and economy.
The government when forming legal rules should
 Draft the laws as per the guidelines of the legislative standards.
 In case of amendment in an existing law, the law is required to be included in the
provision that is being used to repeal the existing law.
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 Direct negotiation should be done to know the interests that relate to the proposed
laws
 Anti-competitive provisions should be pre-checked and reviewed
 Auditing criteria should be known and complied with for success in the inspections
and proper notification should be done by citizens and the government officials.
 Legal documentation should be done as per what is mentioned in the regulation.
 Enforcement is an important aspect of legal framework implementation. To achieve
successful implementation of set rules, it should be continuously enforced.
 Relevant research should be completed in terms of market, private sector, civil society
actions.
 Good coordination should be maintained with the inspection functions, the
effectiveness would increase with optimum utilization of public resources and
minimization of regulated subjects (OECD, 2013).
 The governance structures and the policies regulating the enforcement should be
clearly defined and transparent.
There are several factors that affect the rule of law, namely, constraints on the powers of
government, corruption, open government, fundamental rights, security, regulatory
enforcements, civil justice, criminal justice, informal justice. Certain sub-factors to regulatory
enforcement would include effective enforcement of government regulations, no scope for
improper influence on the formation and implementation of a regulation, no delays occur in
the administrative proceedings.
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Criteria’s for creating a legal framework for undeveloped country - Sudan
Sudan is the largest country in Africa and comprises of people having different faiths, dialect,
and socioeconomic background, which has been the main cause of various conflicts in the
country, post-independence. Various other groups like, Muslim-Christian, Arab-African, etc.
laid the foundation for the country’s social, legal and economic development, but were all
opposed by these conflicts. The rule of law also faced a lot of consequences of the conflicts.
With multiple conflicts at a very complex situation makes it difficult to implement the laws
which already exist in the nation (Fournier, 2007). The Sudanese legal system is a
combination of Arabic government, traditions of tribes, power completely dependent on the
military, and has very complex international influence. The legislation is very unstable and
legal documents are not kept properly so becomes difficult to find them for reference. As a
result, the formation of a legal framework for Sudan is a challenging task.
Creation of a legal framework in Sudan would require to build up freedom, equality, justice,
peace and prosperity. It should focus on building up the strengths and opportunities, which
would include, the natural resources, energetic and talented people, who are self-motivated
and understand the need of development in the country. The priorities need to be in the
context of three major aspects, which are conflicts, poverty and the economy. For achieving
the effective development in the long run, it is very crucial to have good governance
practices, which are strongly supported by the legislation. An independent, strong judiciary
needs can ensure and protect the citizen’s rights and the rule of law. A strong governance
benefits by reducing corruption and reduces risk to natural resources.
In the initial stage, for a un-developed country like Sudan, it is important to strengthen the
basic principles which are applicable to the day-to-day operations and administration. These
basic principles are accountability, transparency, integrity and professionalism (Juba, 2011).
Later, once these principles start functioning smoothly, they can be broadened to incorporate
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the private sector aspects and also strengthen the civil societies. At this conflict stage,
inclusion is an important aspect while creating a legal framework. Hence, the government
should keep itself open to the maximum extent so as to focus and address the conflicts and
challenges. The inclusion would also lead to maximum participation from across the country
for the creation of legal governance. The government leadership would include diverse
groups, not just in the government institutions, but also in various public decision makings
(Parmar, 2007).
Criteria’s for creating a legal framework for developing country - India
The regulatory institutions were developed in India with the introduction of reforms in early
90’s. However, the development in over the two decades in the regulatory environment has
not been similar across the sectors. A lot many regulations and unnecessary burdens have
been imposed on the businesses and investors. The regulation in India can be categorized as
economic, public interest and environmental.
Economic regulation handles and prevents the market failures. The economic regulation is
achieved by prescribing the rules and punishing the behaviour that leads to crash of the
market (Singh, 2013).
Regulation in the public interest are the rules that prevent the interests of the public, which
means that it covers the areas where industries or institutions holds with them something
which is of public interest or, the industries which are unable to meet the standards set forth
by the government. There are a lot many number of mandatory standards set forth by the
government, but these are no desired enforcement facilitated. An example in this context
would be that there are not many industries which are interested in the implementation of
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safety standards as there is not enough demand for the workers. This is one area where a
public interest regulation is required.
Environmental regulation are the rules that focus on the actions which can protect the
environment. Harm to the environment leads to land cost, labor and resources that affect the
economic development. Environmental regulation addresses the issues of unsafe water,
polluted air, habitat loss, etc. The environmental protection in India, has been given the
importance of a constitutional status (Paunov, 2012).
In a developing country, there is a need to integrate multiple systems into one hybrid system
to have uniformity, equality and effective smooth functioning. The outcome of a hybrid
system would consist of elements of local laws, state laws, religious, legal regimes, some
differences would exist on the basis of region. This system must reduce the corruption, and
scope of opportunities with the rich and powerful people to play with the system and exploit
inconsistencies. Over the period, developing countries who have a basic level of legal
framework running, generally reach a situation where rich and powerful individuals take
undue advantage of this power and generally are the ones damaging the legislation and
bringing in corruption as they have required resources, high level connections and the means
to influence decision making. This is one of the main criteria to be considered when creating
a legal framework for a developing country like India (Kaplan, 2012).
Another criteria is of training that will be required for officials who are responsible to run the
state institution. These officials are the lawyers, judges, law clerks as they are the main actors
who shape the implementation of a legal system.
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Criteria’s for creating a legal framework for developed country – New Zealand
New Zealand is a developed country and follows the rule of law as the most important
fundamental principle. It believes that the rules mentioned in the laws should be clear and
accessible, as well it should be applicable to all, be it the citizens or the government. It firmly
believes in the protection of human rights and fair court proceedings; the public powers
should be fairly exercised.
As the country's legal system and policies are at a developed stage, the requirement for
translating of polies to the legislation would be the next step. This step is very crucial to be
efficiently implemented as it includes the rights and liberties of the citizens and communities
which could be at risk. Poor implementation generally results in controversies, litigations,
bad effects on the operational practices, affects the public and private interests (LDA
Council, 2014).
This process can bring improvement in the making of new legislation as well as improving
the existing content of the legislation. There are various criteria’s and aspects to be
considered while creation or amendment of the legislation, like, it is very important to clarify
and understand if the legislation is actually needed, so as to bring improvement in the policy
implementation by the government, the second consideration is to properly following the
processes and procedures of preparation of a legislation, means it should be followed after
proper consultations and discussions with various communities and individuals outside the
government; the next consideration is to ensure that the new prepared legislation is in line
with the established principles.
The main considerations would include
 clearly defining the policy objectives
 thorough consideration of alternative legislation means
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 Consultation and discussion with all relevant departments of the government should
be done at an initial stage (Committee, 2001).
 Consultation with public is as important as with the government officials
 the provisions in the legislation should be in line with the policy objectives
Importance of culture and tradition in legal framework
Traditional cultural practices are the values and beliefs of the community that goes on for
many generations. The traditional cultural practices and beliefs differs with different social
groupings. Some of these practices and beliefs are beneficial to the community and some
could be harmful too. The harmful practices and beliefs persist for many decades despite of
causing harm to the community and violating the human rights laws. Such harmful practices
and beliefs persists for long as they are never questioned or challenged by anyone and hence
makes it a moral right in the eyes of the people practicing them.
Culture and societies keep changing with time and takes different shape. There are various
factors which bring these changes. Cultural changes are a result of socioeconomic shifts,
globalization, technology, environmental pressure, conflicts, various development projects,
etc. Amendments in laws and government policies are also generally done to bring a cultural
change and is a deliberate effort to influence good values. A lot many examples also exist
which depicts the amendments in laws to influence the attitudes like, about racism, the use of
the environment, workers and labour rights, etc. Many efforts have been taken to positively
shape the values about women and gender relations, such efforts include the sending of girls
to school, women being provided equal right to paid work, and changing the attitude of
people towards domestic violence.
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