The Lawmaking Process in The Scottish Parliament

Abstract

The Scotland Act 1998 which established the Scottish Parliament confers on that Parliament the power to make laws which are known as Acts of the Scottish Parliament. However, the legislative competence of the Parliament is restricted. The main restriction relates to reserved matters, that is those matters which the UK Parliament has not devolved to the Scottish Parliament. These are listed in sch 5 to the Act and cover such matters as defence, taxation, social security and macro-economics. Other significant restrictions on the Parliament's legislative competence are that an Act of the Scottish Parliament cannot make any provision which is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) or with European Community law, nor can an Act of the Scottish Parliament modify certain “protected enactments” - including most provisions of the Scotland Act 1998 itself and the Human Rights Act I 998. Finally, an Act of the Scottish Parliament cannot have effect outside Scotland, nor can it remove the Lord Advocate from his position as head of the systems of criminal prosecutions and investigation of deaths in Scotland. An Act of the Scottish Parliament is not law so far as any provision of it is outside the Parliament's legislative competence