Scotland’s Constitutional Future – Lord Wallace’s speech at the University of Glasgow

by ScotsLawBlog on January 21, 2012

Lord Wallace of Tankerness QC, the Advocate General for Scotland, delivered a speech at Glasgow University on Friday 20 January 2012, outlining why the Scottish Parliament cannot currently legislate for a referendum on independence at present.  Lord Wallace also set out how a legal, fair and decisive referendum can be achieved if the Scottish Government works with the UK Government.

Useful links

Some excellent live tweeting yesterday by Scottish lawyer Philip Hannay from the Lord Wallace lecture visible through the hashtag Philip created on Twitter – #scotlandsconstitutionalfuture

Blog post on the ObiterJ blog: Scotland’s Constitutional Future: an influential Scottish voice

Herald Scotland article on Lord Wallace’s speech, emphasising Lord Wallace’s conclusions that it would be “a matter of great concern if the Scottish Government, as a democratically-elected body, were to seek to challenge the rule of law”.

See The Office of the Advocate General’s website for further updates.

Further thoughts welcome in the comments section below.

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Tagged as: Is a Scottish referendum on independence legal, Lord Wallace Speech at Glasgow University, Scotland's constitutional future, Scottish parliament referendum on independence

  • David Halliday

    As I say in my post on this (http://www.hallidaycampbell.com/2012/02/law-and-independence-referendum-is.html), it can be tricky to separate law from politics.We really mustn’t forget that the Advocate General is a politically appointed (cabinet, I believe) minister of the UK government. Lord Wallace was formerly leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, MP for Orkney and Shetland, MSP for Orkney and Deputy First Minister. As Advocate General, he remains a politician and an ardent supporter of the Union. The claim that an Act, duly passed by the Scottish government, providing simply for the holding of a referendum could be unlawful in terms of the Scotland Act is surely, on any fair and disinterested legal analysis, almost unsupportable.

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