[A-List] Scotland: constitutional deform

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

This is utterly disgraceful, but increasingly par for the course for the
Scottish Labour Party, and their Liberal Democrat collaborators.

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Ministers hand over supreme court decision
LUCY ADAMS, Home Affairs Correspondent
The Herald, February 12 2004

SCOTTISH ministers are prepared to let Westminster legislate on one of the
most far-reaching reforms of the judicial system even though justice is an
area devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

The revelation provoked criticism from the SNP yesterday, which accused the
Scottish Executive of handing away powers to London, while one of the
country's leading QCs said the executive should not have "passed the buck"
on such an important issue.

In an exclusive interview with The Herald, Lord Falconer, secretary of state
for constitutional affairs and architect of the reforms to abolish the post
of lord chancellor and create a UK supreme court, admitted that final
appeals may actually be a devolved issue.

The reform would mean final Scottish civil appeals would be sent to the new
supreme court, but Scottish ministers plan to pass a Sewel motion, which
allows Westminster to legislate on devolved matters, on this issue.

Ministers claim they allowed some debate in Holyrood last month, but critics
say the executive has "passed the buck" on one of the most fundamental
changes to the constitution and judicial system in centuries.

Under the Scotland Act, which established the devolution system, justice and
the legal processes which accompany it are devolved to the Scottish
Parliament. The constitution is reserved to Westminster.

It was thought the reforms to send final appeals to a supreme court rather
than House of Lords were reserved or that they at least fell into a grey
area between devolved and reserved. Lord Falconer admitted yesterday they
were not.

He said: "There may be issues about the extent to which it is a devolved
issue. It may require a Sewel motion."

Lord Cullen, Scotland's most eminent judge, told the constitutional affairs
committee he had serious concerns about such an important issue simply being
"nodded" through in Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon, SNP justice spokeswoman, criticised the move. "The Scottish
Executive seem quite happy to allow Westminster to decide what is right for
the Scottish legal system," she said. "Nobody sent MSPs to Edinburgh to
simply watch them hand away powers to London. The Scotland Act is
particularly clear that the courts and their jurisdiction is devolved. The
executive has missed a huge opportunity. There are far too many Sewel
motions going through."

Donald Findlay, QC, said: "The Scottish legal process is quite clearly a
devolved issue," he said. "It may be a bit of a grey area but on the face of
it I would say this is devolved too because the appeal to the House of Lords
is part of that legal process."

An executive spokeswoman said it was noted some proposals of the department
of constitutional affairs "are capable of enactment by the Scottish
Parliament as falling within legislative competence. Accordingly it will be
necessary to obtain the consent of the Scottish Parliament for this
legislation under Sewel convention processes. The Scottish perspective is
not being ignored."

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Why the time has come for change
CATHERINE MacLEOD and LUCY ADAMS
The Herald, February 12 2004

Lord Falconer is pushing through one of the biggest constitutional changes
Scotland has ever faced. He told The Herald why he believes it has to
happen.

The government's plans to replace the law lords with a UK supreme court and
abolish the 1400-year-old position of lord chancellor have created the most
high-profile debate on the constitution since devolution.

Many of the most senior judges and lawyers in Scotland and England have
openly questioned the sense and legality of the proposals, with Scotland's
faculty of advocates branding them unconstitutional and unlawful.

The legislation is being pushed through by Lord Falconer, the temporary lord
chancellor, who is no stranger to controversy, high office or political
influence. He is reputed to be clever, an expert on the B-sides of sixties
pop music, and an admirer good food and wine. A close and trusted confidant
of the prime minister, it is to Lord Falconer whom Blair turns when the
political tempo rises.

Falconer, or Charlie to his friends, is a "posh" Scot who exudes charm,
bonhomie and a grasp of his brief wherever he goes. Born and bred in
Edinburgh and educated at Glenalmond before leaving Scotland for Cambridge,
he failed to be selected for a winnable Labour seat before the 1997 general
election partly because he insisted on private education for his children.

Political obscurity was not for him, though. Instead, Blair parachuted him
into the House of Lords immediately after the election, and high office
beckoned from day one. For nearly a year, he was solicitor general before he
inherited responsibility for the ill-fated Millennium Dome when Peter
Mandelson first fell from favour.

Lesser mortals, even mortals more alert to Labour Party sensitivities, might
not have survived the roller-coaster of the Dome as it plunged into
effective bankruptcy but Falconer defied the norm, not only surviving but
prospering. Colleagues point out that a greater contrast to Mandelson could
not be imagined. Where Mandelson is suave and reputedly conspiratorial,
Falconer is said to be not in the least cliquey; open, and sometimes so
unkempt he appears in the Lords with his shirt hanging out.

Besides the peer's good nature, which is said to prevail 99.9% of the time,
there is too a steely, focused determination. When the prime minister
effectively sacked Lord Irvine of Lairg, the former lord chancellor, to
replace him with Lord Falconer he was handed no easy brief. Not only did he
have to contend with a disgruntled and formidable colleague simmering on the
benches behind him, he was charged with enforcing sweeping constitutional
change in the UK's judicial, legal and parliamentary systems.

Colleagues in the Lords, who respect him hugely, say his credentials for
stepping into such controversial areas are ideal, since he has not let
anyone make him their prisoner, but other parliamentary colleagues, alarmed
at imminent upheaval, would have preferred a more consensual, less radical
approach. The only certainty is that he will do it the way he and the prime
minister think fit.

The relationship between Blair and Falconer cannot be overstated, and while
friends commend his intellect, his friendship and strength of purpose and
his direct and honest approach, they bemoan his lack of political nous and
remoteness from Labour's grassroots. Falconer will be as nonplussed by that
criticism as he has been by any other.

It is easy to see why the Blairs turn to him in their moments of crisis.
They have much in common, not least their families of four. Falconer makes
no secret of his fondness for family. Pictures of his family grace the walls
of his rather dull office

in Whitehall, alongside attractive reminders of the Millennium Dome, and he
will happily talk of his family holidays in Scotland.

Called to the Bar of the Inner Temple in 1974, he has spent all his working
life in England but like many other Scots his exile came somewhat as a
surprise. Since all his family come from Scotland, and he had lived in
Scotland until he went south to university, he assumed he would always
return north but, as he puts it himself, "one day I turned round and 20
years had gone by and I was married and had children, and was living and
working in England and there I was."