Initial Response to the Draft Interim Constitution of Scotland

The monarchy providing hereditary Heads of State for independent Scotland is a totally anachronistic prospect which contradicts several aspects of even the interim constitution.     

1.      Sovereignty of the people.  How can the people be truly sovereign while retaining an actual sovereign*?  *'noun - supreme ruler, especially a monarch’  The monarchy will be symbolically and spiritually oppressive, even if we are successful in declawing and defanging it from the current death grip on democracy it enjoys in its integral position in the Westminster system.

    2.      Human Rights.  The rights to vote, stand for election and determine their own destiny are denied  to  members of the ‘royal’ family pertaining to the position of head of state, and the right to elect our own representatives at state level is denied to us. 

3.      Equality.  This perhaps the most contradictory of the statements contained in the draft interim constitution. 

At 28 the claim ‘Every person in Scotland is equal before the law and has equal entitlement to its protection and benefit’ is factually incorrect.  The monarch and the heir are currently exempt from certain parts of Freedom of Information legislation.   Not only that, none of the rest of us enjoy a right of veto over government legislation, before it goes through parliament, on things which affect our private interests. 

To state that every person ‘is entitled to be treated with respect and without discrimination on the basis of personal characteristics’ is in direct opposition to encouraging extreme deference and providing status and position due to one bloodline - a situation which permeates society with a snobbery and obsequience that is not only legitimised but promoted and actively encouraged by governmental structure.

To state that the government ‘must seek to promote equality of opportunity’ is the direct opposite of no-one but members of one family having the opportunity to be Heads of State. 

To state that the rights, powers and privileges which attach to the Crown would continue after independence, albeit subject to the constitution and Acts passed by the Scottish parliament, seems to be attempting to have a foot on two horses which are about to take off in diametrically opposite directions. It would be quite impossible for the current rights, powers and privileges which attach to the Crown to continue after independence if we are in any way serious about sovereignty of the people, human rights and equality. It simply does not compute.