string(3) "138"
This programme trains working professionals in the technical and legal skills required to compose legal documents in the Portuguese language.
The Postgraduate Diploma in Legislative Sciences consists of twenty-four credits, distributed over an academic year. The programme focuses on teaching key themes of the legislative sciences, such as the legislative process, legal material, and formal legistics. In addition to focusing on the Macao legal system’s particularities, the modules also focus on teaching the Basic Law of Macao, legal terminologies in Portuguese, legal research methods, and normative production techniques. Finally, this programme involves the participation and collaboration of scholars from Macao and Portugal (from the Catholic University of Portugal – Porto) and legal professionals in Macao.
The programme coordinator is Douty Diakite.
During the one year of evening course work, Post-Graduate Diploma in Legislative Sciences students hold full-time student status.
- Students develop technical skills required in Macao legal context
- Students improve their skills in drafting and writing of legal documents
- Students learn and improve their research skills
- Translator and interpreter
- Legal departments of public and private institutions
- Legislative Assembly
- Law firms and notary offices
- Courts
- Arbitration centers
- Are proficient in Portuguese
Study plan & description of modules
For the programme’s government approval [in Chinese and Portuguese] click here.
Please click on any specific module below to see its description
Modules
Year 1
1. What is a political system?
2. Types of States… MSAR is not a State.
3. Types of Executives
4. Types of Assemblies
5. Political Representation
6. Introduction and Historic legal background
7. The “EOM” and the Portuguese Constituion of 1976
8. The Joint Declarion of 1987
9. The continuity principle
10. The formula “one country two systems” and the MBL
11. The MBL nature
12. The MBL autonomy and the MSAR
13. RPC and SAR
14. SAR and Comparative Law
15. Macau Constitutional Order
16. Fundamental rights in MBL
17. MSAR political system
18. MSAR and the judicial system
19. MSAR executive system
20. MSAR and the International Law: The Macau International legal personality
21. MSAR and the MBL limits
22. MSAE and the principle of high degree of autonomy
23. MSAR and lusophony
24. MSAR and the portuguese language
• Introduction
• Characteristics of legal language
• How to write legal documents?
• How to interpreter legal expressions?
• Understanding how to explain the Macau SAR legal system?
• How to address the different types of legal documents?
• How to read and interpreter basic legal documents
• MSAR Basic Law vocabulary
• MSAR Civil Law vocabulary
• Practice of legal drafting
• Practice of legal interpretation
• How to read and interpreter complex legal documents?
• Vocabulary related to MSAR penal code.
• Vocabulary related to MSAR commercial code.
• Vocabulary related to MSAR jurisprudence.
• Vocabulary related to legal bills and its technical discussion
• Vocabulary related to Decree-laws
• Vocabulary related to Regulations
• Vocabulary related to Executive Orders
• Vocabulary related to Sentences
• Vocabulary related to Legal assessments
1. Why studing legistics?
2. Sources of Law in the MSAR
3. Law and its regulator role
4. Law as an instrument of governance
5. Law a result of a historical, social and political environment
6. Legistics definition
7. Material Legistics
8. Organizational Legistics
9. Formal Legistics
10. Legistics phasing
11. Legistics risk and assessment
12. Legistics evaluation
13. Legistics in MSAR – final assessment
1. Introduction
2. International sources of law
3. Hard and soft law
4. International legal instruments
5. MSAR international obligations
6. MSAR and international law
7. PRC and MSAR and international law – roles and responsibilities
8. Formal Legistics
9. The crafting of legal solutions
10. Legistics - phasing
11. Legistics - risk and assessment
12. Legistics - evaluation
13. Legistics in MSAR – final assessment
1. How to understand legistics?
2. How to draft effectively?
3. How to intrepret effectively?
4. How to use legal drafting techniques?
5. Public Participation and legal drafting
6. How to improve the legal drafting?
7. Legal drafting and punctuation
8. Legal drafting: capitals and small letters
9. Legal drafting: italics and bolds
10. How to draft laws?
11. How to draft other normative acts?
12. Case studies
1. Normative Communication
2. The legal discourse
3. The legal message
4. Drafting principles
5. Normative Simplicity
6. Drafting complex legal documents
7. Bilingual drafting
8. Legal translations
9. Quality evaluation
1. Legal decision-making process
2. The MSAR Legislative Council
3. The MSAR Legislative Council – Internal regulations
4. Legal decision-making process – political negotiation
5. Legal decision-making process – legal phasing
6. Urgent Legal decision-making process
7. Legal decision-making process – Publication questions
The ultimate goal of the subject is to get participants ready to undertake the writing tasks demanded of lawyers. Specifically, the subject should help honing the following skills:
• Analyzing and conceptualizing legal issues.
• Organizing strategies (outlining, decision trees, cluster diagrams).
• Structuring legal arguments and documents.
• Using core writing techniques, including clarity, cohesion, concision, and legal concerns.
• Writing strong introductions and conclusions.
• Mastering objective v. persuasive techniques.
• Sharpening efficient writing and editing skills using timed assignments.