Laws are published daily by the government through new laws and regulations, in addition to existing laws that are amended, repealed or repealed. Maintaining a legal registry, either automatically through a subscription service or manually, provides the organization with important updates to legislation, which may mean making changes to practices to ensure they remain compliant. It is very useful for a company that the legal register not only contains a list of legal titles, but also summarizes each entry in terms of the compliance obligations that the legislation imposes on organizations. This then leads to a better understanding of compliance and the activities to be performed and the processes to be put in place to ensure compliance within the organization. Our services have been developed and developed to meet the requirements of the main EHS standards used today in the world – in particular ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 (replaced by ISO 45001 in March 2018). If you work every day with companies that come to you asking for “legal registries”, which we do, you will find that the concept is even more difficult to determine and that almost everyone will have their own opinion on the subject. What do the standards actually require organizations to do for this clause? Simply put, a company must have a process in place that identifies them and gives them access to applicable regulations based on the activities they perform. This must be kept up to date and taken into account throughout the management system. This corresponds to a legal register! It is clear that compliance with the requirements of these two clauses 6.1.3 requires a process that begins with the need to identify and have access to applicable regulations based on the environmental or health and safety aspects/hazards of the company (what the company does). If your initial compliance assessment or ongoing compliance assessments identify areas of non-compliance or opportunities for improvement, the legal register should record the compliance measures or recommendations identified to address them and be able to track progress against them. The register should indicate not only which legislation is applicable, but also how each law applies to the organization, i.e. its compliance obligations.
The organization needs to understand why the law applies and what it needs to do to ensure compliance. Here are some of the things that make up a high-quality legal registry: Section 6.1.3 of ISO 14001 (2015) on environmental management systems states that organizations must identify and have access to the legal (and other) requirements they must meet, and understand how these “compliance obligations” apply to the organization. It is important that there is also a requirement to keep documented information about them. In addition to the legal registry element of ISO 14001 certification, Comply Direct offers a range of tailored ISO 14001 consulting services to help companies achieve the standard, including initial audits of a company`s existing EMS to the latest standard, including site visits, as well as gap analysis and assistance in integrating ISO 14001 with other management standards. Finally, it is also important to mention the wording of section 9.3 of both standards, which refers to management review. This requires regular management review of the overall management system, particularly with regard to compliance obligations/legal requirements and compliance assurance. In addition to locations, regional and company-wide managers also need to have insight into their company`s compliance status. A legal registry is a living document and should be reviewed regularly, and any legislation contained in the registry should be reassessed at intervals set by your organization. Your legal registry should show how often you conduct your compliance assessments and what their results are. Companies are not required to keep a legal register.
However, if they operate in areas where compliance with a wide range of rules and regulations is required, it is difficult to imagine how they could fulfil their obligations without an appropriate system. Paul Clarke explains what a legal registry is and how it can be a practical tool that improves efficiency and helps reduce costly errors. For more information on what exactly a legal registry is and why your organization needs one, check out our short webinar. What`s interesting is that the term “legal registry” is not mentioned anywhere in the standards – it has just become the overarching standard term for what these provisions require. We`ll be back! More precisely, what is not sufficient for a decentralized and purely local approach is that there are many providers of so-called “legal registry” services in all countries of the world where certification of a management system has been sought. However, if different, local and national solutions are used in a multinational organization, they are likely to be very different in terms of coverage, quality, reliability and, ultimately, effectiveness. It`s a time-consuming and often complex undertaking to review hundreds of legal obligations and determine which ones are relevant to your business and which aren`t, before you even assess your compliance with those requirements. For this reason, many practitioners turn to external providers to become aware of their obligations and even help them comply with them.
A legal register deals with this problem by bringing together in a single collection all legislation that affects hazardous substances (or air pollution or waste or other issues that apply to a particular company).