Legislative Drafting Manual

Draft in the positive
Whenever practicable, drafters must daft in the positive, not the negative.
Bad Example: Criminal Procedure Code Article 63(1) which reads „---the offence 
with which he is charged does not carry the death penalty or rigorous 
imprisonment for fifteen years --
„ 
Put the most important concept at the end of a sentence
In laws the most important concepts belongs at the end of the sentence. By 
definition that implies that subordinate clauses that state the circumstances under 
which a rule will apply, usually do
n‟t belong at the end of the sentence. 
Frequently, drafters find it convenient to place them at the very beginning of the 
sentence; but not invariably. If possible a drafter should try to avoid placing 
adjectival and other subordinate clauses between subject and verb and object. 
Avoid incorporation by reference
A drafter should, whenever possible, avoid repeating by cross-reference material 
from another statute. This incorporation of material merely by reference requires 
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that a person reading the law must scramble to find the law referred to. The 
drafter should repeat in the new law the material in the old law. 
Make correct internal reference

A convention holds that a sub article that refers to another sub article 
without mentioning another article refers to a sub-article of the same 
section. So if one sub-article refers to another sub-article of the same 
article, it need not mention the article number.

Very frequently one article of a law states a general rule, providing an 
exception to that rule in another article or sub-article. In that case, both in 
the general rule and in the exception the drafter should call attention to the 
other article.