Governance, veterinary legislation and quality

This review of governance distinguishes between ends and means and, by highlighting the complexity and differing definitions of the concept, defines its scope and focuses discussion on its characteristics in order to establish an interrelationship between veterinary legislation and governance. Good governance must be backed by legislation, and good legislation must incorporate the principles and instruments of good governance. This article lists some of the main characteristics of governance and then reviews them in parallel with the methodology used to draft veterinary legislation, emphasising the importance of goal-setting and stakeholder participation. This article describes the criteria developed by the Veterinary Legislation Support Programme (VLSP) of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) for assessing the quality of veterinary legislation. It then makes a comparison between the quality assurance process and the good governance process in order to demonstrate that the introduction and proper use of the tools for developing veterinary legislation offered by the OIE VLSP leads to a virtuous circle linking legislation with good governance. Ultimately, the most important point remains the implementation of legislation. Consequently, the author points out that satisfactory implementation relies not only on legislation that is technically and legally appropriate, acceptable, applicable, sustainable, correctly drafted, well thought through and designed for the long term, but also on the physical and legal capacity of official Veterinary Services to perform their administrative and enforcement duties, and on there being the means available for all those involved to discharge their responsibilities.