Essay question: Discuss the impact of the Scotland Act 1998 and the Human Rights Act 1998 on the development of the law in Scotland. Your answer should use examples taken from the W150 module materials.
Question 1 (80 marks) - Discuss the impact of the Scotland Act 1998 and the Human
Rights Act 1998 on the development of the law in Scotland. Your answer should use
examples taken from the W150 module materials.
In 1997, a referendum on Scottish devolution was held due to changes in political and
social opinions in society. The result of this was the Scotland Act 1998. It planned the
creation of the Scottish Parliament, separate from the UK Parliament, with its own law
making power. This Act had a huge impact on the development of law in Scotland as it
devolved certain areas in which Scotland could now legislate on their own to suit the
needs of Scottish people in particular, for example housing or education. The Human
Rights Act 1998 is another Act which has had a big impact on law making in Scotland. It
ensured that the rights contained in the ECHR were now able to be enforced in Scottish
courts as it previously, anyone wanting to appeal against an infringement of the ECHR
had to go through a lengthy and expensive process due to it not being able to be done
through the Scottish legal system. Hence, when the Human Rights Act 1998 came into
place, considerable impact was felt by the Scottish law making system. Although both
Acts have made significant changes to the law in Scotland, there are also many areas
that remain unchanged.
The Scotland Act 1998 had a great effect on the law-making process in Scotland. When
the Act came into place, it determined a list of reserved matters for the UK Parliament to
keep authority over legislating on. These matters include ones such as constitutional
matters, foreign policy and data protection. Anything that was not deemed as reserved
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, Soha Ahmed (F339489X) EMA W150 -16J
is assumed to have been devolved to the Scottish Parliament. This includes matters
such as health, education and housing. This impacted the law-making system in
Scotland hugely as now there was a separate Parliament in Scotland that had full
legislative competence in specific areas rather than all laws being made from the UK
Parliament. The change is evident as after the Scottish Parliament was established,
“Scots law in devolved areas has tended to be different from that applicable to England”
(Howells, 2012, p. 53) which shows that the Scotland can now make legislation which is
more directly suiting to their needs.
However, the law-making process in regard to devolved matters remains unchanged in
some conditions. The UK Parliament, with agreement of the Scottish Parliament, can
still legislate on devolved matters as there is nothing preventing this in the Scotland Act
1998. This means that although power is devolved, under the Act, Scotland has no right
over the extent of the UK Parliament’s input on devolved matters. Also, the Scottish
Parliament still does not have right to legislate on reserved matters, just as it was prior
to the Scotland Act 1998, which highlights another area of law making that remains
unchanged.
The limit of legislative competence which changed due to the Scotland Act 1998 also
impacted the way laws are made in Scotland. Prior to the Act, Bills which would impact
Scotland, whether solely or collectively the UK as a whole, were all passed through the
UK Parliament legislative system. When the Scotland Act 1998 came into place, some
legal power was transferred from the UK Parliament to the newly devised Scottish
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