Analyzing law-making from a business process view: The paradox of law-making

The law-making process is the source of legislation and is inextricably bound up with the developments of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of e-government. Against this backdrop, both the normative law-making process (as prescribed in law) and the law-making processes as found in practice are being analyzed. Both types of processes are modeled using Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and the process descriptions are compared with each other. The retrospective analyses of several cases show deviations from normative processes as prescribed in law. It was found that the law-making process is a highly fragmented process and that there is hardly any back office integration. Paradoxically, law (resulting from the law-making process) complicates the improvement of the law-making process. Our analysis shows that the law-making process can be treated like any other business process. We recommend the use of business process (re-)engineering and transformation instruments to improve the law-making process.