This is a guest post from John Brown. He asked that in the introduction this was included. “If you introduce me as a member of the Liberation / SNC steering group you might also want to point out I support the view that Scotland, in due course, should become a republic, and I agree with Thomas Paine who in in 1776 held that “It is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion.”
Today, the 23rd of April 2024, it is worth repeating my Scottish mantra – ‘We have a long history, it’s beyond any doubt that Scotland is a Sovereign Nation, and the people of Scotland are Sovereign’.
Some 317 years ago the Acts of Union were passed by the parliaments of Scotland and England, yet despite the specific terms of the Treaty of Union and its enabling Acts we do not operate with a codified Scots constitution.
The fundamental principles of our sovereign rights and obligations are not set out and protected in a single document and put into law or statute to define and limit the powers of government and its institutions. We lack proper and effective means of regulating the relationship between the people and the state.
What we have is a pock fu’ o’ Westminster and Holyrood statutes, conventions, judicial decisions, and treaties, used amended or ignored at whim by an English monarch and the governments of the day in Westminster and Holyrood. We exercise our power by voting in government elections once every 4/5 years.
In this so-called United Kingdom, we have what is described as a constitutional monarchy where the executive power of government is delegated by legislation and social conventions to parliamentary democracy in Westminster and Holyrood.
But our sovereignty is much more than a matter of national identity, important though that is. To me, it is very much about how we, the sovereign people of Scotland, under Scots constitutional law and international law, freely and effectively exercise ultimate power over our body politic.
So, do we have a constitutional monarchy in Scotland and do we, as a sovereign people,exercise ultimate power over the body politic? Well, not that I can see.
We have a monarchy but there is no Scottish monarch; no ‘king of Scots, commonly regarded as ‘first among equals’ (primus inter pares – for our readers of history & law). All Scots monarchs are required to take the Scots coronation oath and swear –
We have a vacant throne, a Scottish crown that glisters an’ sparkles wi’ jewillis an’ precius stanes in Edinburgh Castle. But what is more precious to me is the constitutional character of the Crown in Scotland: representative of the community of the realm and symbolic of the sovereign people of Scotland, a community of equals, not subjects of the monarch.
In a democratic Scotland all prerogative powers should be exercised with the knowledge and approval of parliament and the institutions of the community of the realm, all subject to the will of the people through our codified constitution. The aim being to ensure that the head of state simply fulfils a ceremonial role in the name of the crown, the community of the realm.
Click here to view original web page at Wha for Scotland’s King & Law