INDEPENDENCE campaigner Martin Keatings has submitted more than 30 pages of arguments backing his claim that the Scottish Government has the power to legislate for another indyref without requiring UK Government consent.
Lawyers acting for him last night lodged the 33 pages of detailed legal arguments at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, ahead of a two-day hearing scheduled for next month.
Keatings, convener of Forward As One, who is standing in next May’s Holyrood election, is pursuing the case on the basis that the Scottish Parliament already has the power under the Scotland Act 1998 to legislate for an independence referendum without needing consent from the Westminster government.
Originally there were three defenders in the case, but Scottish Ministers have withdrawn, leaving Advocate General for Scotland, Lord Keith Stewart, QC and James Wolffe QC, the Lord Advocate.
They have submitted preliminary pleas on a number of grounds, including that the proceedings are academic, hypothetical and incompetent, as well as being premature and vague. They also claim that as pursuer, Keatings has “no title, interest or standing” to bring them.
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However, last month Lady Carmichael ruled that the Advocate General must ensure the exchange of written arguments would take place, after which there would be a full hearing at the Court of Session.
In their response to Stewart and Wolffe, Aidan O’Neill QC and advocate David Welsh say: “Given the number of preliminary pleas – the supporting propositions for which tend to blend into each other – one would be forgiven for thinking that the UK Government and the Lord Advocate simply did not want any decision on the merits of the action.
“Indeed, both defenders who remain in this action have thus far actively sought to prevent this court carrying out its constitutional function in clarifying questions of law by relying instead on unfounded and inconsequential preliminary points.
“This court was clear in permitting this hearing that all parties’ pleas will be considered and determined. That includes those of the pursuer. It cannot be permitted to pass without note that both defenders have sought to expend public funds on the instruction of multiple senior counsel on each side in an attempt to prevent the pursuer from having his legal questions determined by this court.”
Keatings told The National last night that there was a common thread running through the long and detailed arguments: “The common thread that any reader will notice is that the UK Government and others have failed to advance any opposition, or indeed any argument against our legal opinion that it is lawful for the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a second referendum.
“Instead, their entire focus has been on technicalities which amount to a declaration by politicians that asking reasonable constitutional questions is somehow the fiefdom of the political elite.”
He said that was “quite disturbing” and completely betrays the idea of what a representative democracy should be.
“It’s not the right of the electorate to hold to account and to ask questions of Governments and of parliaments?
“Well, this pleb from Dunfermline thinks otherwise. And so do 9000 members of the electorate and growing.
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“The court should rightfully slap that proposition down as being the exact opposite of representative democracy is. Politicians are answerable to the electorate, period.”
He said the line “it is not for the pursuer to stand in the shoes of parliamentarians” was advanced in previous leaked submissions, after being first posited in 1998 during the Scots Act debates that brought the Scottish Parliament back into being.
Keatings added: “Twenty-Two years later we find ourselves with that question still unanswered. So on ‘standing in the shoes of parliamentarians’, we’re not.
“That’s because we’re doing something that politicians have allowed to fester for over two decades.
“The ambiguity surrounding a very real and very important constitutional question about our parliament being able to legislate for our right to vote. And so we continue to move forward to finally having it answered.”
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