ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the role of law-making in the development of a formal land tenure system. Law-making is a complex political and legal process, for which legislative institutions throughout the world use procedural devices that keep order in the process and ensure the coherence of approved legislation. The chapter argues that in the context of developing countries such as Timor-Leste, these procedural devices are poorly implemented or inexistent, which affects the legal solutions for land administration. Inspired by Cohen et al.’s (1972) Garbage Can Model, this chapter proposes an analytical framework for a comprehensive analysis of law-making in developing countries. The chapter provides an analysis of the main steps taken to draft and approve key land-related legislation in Timor-Leste. From this analysis it becomes clear that, in Timor-Leste, various procedural devices that help to keep some order and rationality in law-making are missing or poorly implemented, which is reflected in the low quality of Timorese legislation approved. While progress has been made since independence, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Most advances in different procedural devices were promoted by few participants and were not followed up by structural changes, therefore leaving some legacy but no guarantee that these improvements will be consolidated in the future. More generally, this chapter shows how the study of law-making, both to understand and improve it, must take into special consideration the problems and dilemmas that surround legislative processes in developing countries.
