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The Law is the Law

07/09/2020 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

The law is the law, or is it?   According to our Prime Minister it only applies to him when it serves his needs!

I have just read ‘The Secret Barrister’s’ article “Justice League” which was published The Guardian’s Review Magazine pages 6-9 Saturday 22 August 2020.

Law - it needs to be balanced
The Law – it needs to be balanced

This is a large mouthful to say, and even to write, but it is necessary to refer to this article and draw your attention to it, as for many of us the law and parliament are inseparable!  However, they are not; according to the Judges and Parliament, …The ultimate decision remains with Parliament and not the judiciary. Ultimately, the judiciary does no more, or less, under the 1998 Act than carry out its constitutional function of interpreting and applying the law enacted by Parliament. They only have such power as Parliament gave them in the Human Rights Act 1998.

The Attorney General is the link in the chain who provides guidance to parliament and the judiciary – however, a former Attorney General, Lord Mayhew of Twysden, said:

…the Attorney General has a duty to ensure that the Queen’s ministers who act in her name, or purport to act in her name, do act lawfully because it is his duty to help to secure the rule of law, the principal requirement of which is that the government itself acts lawfully.”

In his article, the Secret Barrister refers to how part of the government and also the new media seems to think that the judiciary has attempted to interfere with parliamentary actions and decision.  This is a complete fallacy, for parliament to work successfully, in order to maintain parliamentary sovereignty, be some legal limit… and that is what the judiciary provide.  Judicial review is not, as politicians would have the public believe, a tool by which judges overrule a political decision that they disagree with.  The questions that the courts decide are those of lawfulness, applying common law principles developed over centuries.

The Secret Barrister sums up by saying …if we lose judicial independence, we lose the rule of law.  The day a judge makes a binding decision affecting the rights and liberties of one of us, not on the legal and factual merits, but with a nervous glance to the press and public galleries, or with a  beady eye on political favour or punishment, is the day that the decay in our democracy turns terminal….

The day that this happens is the day that the government becomes omnipotent and Big Brother becomes the order of the day.

The government must remain accountable, and the judiciary must remain independent from government.

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Filed Under: Community Journalist Tagged With: government, judiciary, law, news media, newspapers, The State

The Collini Case – Book Review

11/06/2019 By ACOMSDave

Title The Collini Case
Place West Germany
Publication date 4th July 2013
Pages PB 208
Price PB £7.18
Author Ferdinand von Sabruch
Publisher Penquin
Edition  
Special features (maps, etc.)  
ISBN  978-0718159207

Firstly I must note my self-interest in legal stories, and ‘The Collini Case’ delivers for me in every way. whether it be in book form, TV, radio or movie. 

I remember watching Perry Mason, The Defenders, and lately (ITV Series taken from USA).  But also The Client by ….. Grisham which I read as a book and then watched as a movie and TV series.

I am also an ardent fan of police/detective procedural, having read the Moonstone when I was 8 years old, all of Sherlock Holmes, and most of John Buchan’s books; never mind the various police TV series over the years.

Yes I love the law, but I am not a lawyer/solicitor/or policeman!

So when I picked up this book, ‘The Collini Case’ second hand in a charity shop for £0.50, it was firstly because it was about the law, more specifically the law in Germany; and that it was about the second World War, the Nazi and economic regime over that period, and the fall out after the war, and it was about people.

The people are easily defined:

  • the lawyer
  • the murderer
  • the murdered person
  • the love interest
  • The mentor (?)

The law in this case is that of the law in Germany following reunification of West and East Germany.  The German legal system is that of civil law which is founded on the principles laid out by the ‘Basic Law for the Federal Map of Germany, … but many of the most important laws were developed prior to the 1949 constitution.  It is comprised of ‘public law’ which regulates the relationship between a citizen/person and the state…  This area of law has also been subject to a wide array of influence from Roman Law to Napoleonic law.

I have already mentioned the main characters in general terms, the story is relatively simple; ‘a man walks into a hotel and kills another man.  The murderer is a well-respected Mercedes-Benz worker, Fabrizio Collini – a man of unblemished record, and with no apparent reason for committing the murder. He doesn’t run away but refuses to defend himself to the police.  His lawyer, assigned by the court, gets nowhere with him, and even though he is almost concerned with ‘just’ doing his job, he follows his legal nose, discovers his client’s past and therefore his reason for the murder and then he has to put together a mechanism for the prosecution to introduce the evidence so that he has the right of rebuttal.

Apart from the initial murder, there is no further ‘American’ style action.  It is a story about thinking, about research and also about the good, old-fashioned dogged investigation.

The sting in the tale is the impact that this story had on the German legal system and the German government after its publication.  The outcry over ‘war criminals’ escaping justice led to the German government reviewing its legal system.

Links:

  1. Amazon: The Collini Case
  2. Cineuropa trailer:

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Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: book review, Collini Case, Germany, law, Lawyer, legal whodunit, murder, Nazi, police, whodunnit

Retrospective Justice

04/07/2017 By ACOMSDave

When I read this article, and also subsequent articles from other journalists, I was of a mind that it is what government does – changes the goal posts to suit it needs – in this case retrospective justice.  However, during my research, I was taken to the following publication ‘The legislative sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament‘ and the following quote

Each Parliament is absolutely sovereign in its own time and may legislate as it wishes on any topic and for any place

also

Parliament has the power to legislate retrospectively as well as prospectively. This means that Parliament can render illegal and impose penalties on actions which were perfectly lawful when they were committed. Also, actions which were unlawful at the time of commission, may be rendered lawful or not subject to any legal sanction or proceedings.

So the end result would seem to be, that governments are unique, and resolve their issues in their own way, without necessarily having to conform to what previous governments have said.  However, legislation is still legislation, and it would seem to me that for an integral part of a published Act of Parliament to be changed, then it must be debated in the House and agreed by both Houses. The Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014 set the relevant date as being 1 January 2014, not 2017; so we must only assume from this change that ‘someone’ has something to hide.

Image result for scales of justice UK

Skating on thin ice – Retrospective Justice

So an end to donation secrecy in Northern Ireland. It’s been long awaited, but today James Brokenshire made good his party’s promise in their Northern Irish manifesto… From Hansar…

Source: End of donor secrecy (flick of a legislative wand and NI ‘dark money’ is a thing of the past)…

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Filed Under: Editor to ACOMSDave, Government & Politics Tagged With: government, justice, law, retrospective

Dictatorship 1, Democracy Nil – The People Loose

31/01/2017 By ACOMSDave

 

Democracy

Democracy needs to be nurtured and looked after, if not then it gets strangled and we end of with a barren land. (David McFarlane)

Law, as it had been known, was no longer decisive in legal proceedings. Judges, now more than ever, were working toward the Fuehrer. Judicial independence, once the ideal of the German state, nearly vanished….Jim Snowden (https://jimsnowden.com/2013/11/06/the-nazi-judiciary/)

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”..John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902)

The problem with being an ‘outsider’ to another countries politics, is just that, you are an outsider.  I don’t profess to understand American politics, but I do reserve the right to comment on what I perceive to be a fundamental change to society and the impact that it is having on others.  When Hitler came to power, even though he had been well treated by the German Judiciary, he set out to control the courts and to remove fundamental rights.  He succeeded, and to those who suffered because of this came the ‘Holocaust’ and the ‘Death Camps’.  The United Nations states ‘The Rule of Law and Democracy Section stands as OHCHR focal point for democracy activities.’ The rule of law is the legal principle that law should govern a nation, as opposed to being governed by arbitrary decisions of individual government officials.  The decision by President Trump goes in the face of all legal precedents except when you look at dictatorships such as Nazi Germany etc.  Indeed it bares direct comparison with Hitler,

I expect the German legal profession to understand that the nation is not here for them, but that they are here for the nation*, and that from now on, I shall intervene in these cases and remove from office those judges who evidently do not understand the demand of the hour. (Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals, vol III, the Justice Case,Washington, 1951 Page 51″)

President Trump - Democracy?Most of the world did not stand up to Hitler and his political aspirations, and the world ended up in a world war.  In all conscience I cannot stand by and say nothing,  President Trump is going down a very dangerous road, and the problem is that he is taking people who didn’t vote for him with him!

Donald Trump has fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she ordered Justice Department lawyers to stop defending the president’s controversial immigration orders.

Source: Donald Trump sacks US attorney general Sally Yates for defiance over immigration ban – live

Further Reading:

  • Holocaust Encyclopedia
  • Why Adolf Hitler spared the Judges – Judicial Opposition against the Nazi State

 

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Filed Under: Community Journalist Tagged With: democracy, Hitler, law, Nazi, President Trump

365 Without 377 – Movie Review

31/12/2016 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

365 without 377Name of movie: 365 Without 377
Date: 2011
Length (hrs): 53 mins
Film genre: Documentary
Characters: Beena, Pallav and Abhenna.
Director: Adele Tulli, who graduated in South Asian Studies and has worked on several activist projects in India and Europe
Setting: India
 
Plot information: A documentary following the decriminalizing of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalized any sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex.
When does the movie take place? July 2009
What happens in the movie? Imposed under the British colonial rule in 1860, Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code criminalize any sexual acts between consenting adults of the same sex, stigmatizing them as ‘against the order of nature’. On 2ND July 2009 the Delhi High Court passed a landmark judgement scrapping this clause, thus fulfilling the most basic demand of the Indian LGBTQ community, which had been fighting this law for the past 10 years. Three characters, Beena, Pallav and Abheena travel through the city of Bombay heading to the celebrations for the first anniversary of the historic verdict. ‘365 without 377’ is the story of their journey towards freedom. (IMDB)

What makes the movie interesting? The chance to see a different culture handling a British imposed culture, and how they developed as people and overcame the challenges of being ‘gay’ in India, where even though the law as been annulled by the Delhi High Court, for many they still believe it will take much more than this to change the mindset of the Indian community as a whole
What is the best part? The best parts for me was looking at the three main characters lives, and how just like ourselves they are ordinary, but have developed as people and are willing to stand up for their beliefs and rights.
How do you feel when the movie ended? Neither sad or happy, but I did feel that I wanted to learn more, and hope that another documentary will do a follow-up say in 5 years time.
Who will like this move? People with an interest in LGBT activism, people with an interest in humanity, people who like India
On a scale of 1 (don’t like) – 5 (like), how do you rate this movie? For me definitely a 4

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Filed Under: Movie Reviews Tagged With: British imperialism, culture, India, law, LGBT

The Law is Equal for All

30/10/2016 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Law equality and the Gay Cake Case

Missing a slice of cake


This article is a concise and accurate report on the law surrounding the case known as the ‘Gay Cake’ case.  It wasn’t prosecutorial zeal which led to the court case, it was a company which failed understand the basic tenets of law and in particular contract law.
The court case was not brought by Gareth Lee, all he wanted was a cake, the case was taken up by the Equality Commission as it believed that the baker had broken the law. Subsequently, this has been proved correct by the original judgement and the Appeal Court.
No one is above the law, if we are to be a fair and equitable society we must ‘ALL’ comply with and live by the law.  If we don’t like a law, then we have legal remedies, and in the final resort, we can challenge the government.
 
Less prosecutorial zeal may be the easiest way to address such issues
Source: The great Belfast bake-off: Asher’s ‘gay cake’ decision

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Filed Under: Anti-Bullying & Homophobia Tagged With: Ashers, cake, contract law, equality, law, marriage

Park service releases LGBT history study

25/10/2016 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

LGBT History

History to everyone is important, but for those who have not been able to have their full identity because of family or societal pressures, or laws which punished their very existence, history can become a poison chalice.  It is extremely comforting to know, that one country, which even though it still has its share of bigots and organisations which seek to continue this persecution, is moving forward and recognising the LGBT community and taking note of its history –  in this case it is the National Park Service of America.LGBT History

Positively, I have just heard that the Scottish Government is seeking to pardon all those LGBT people who have a criminal record due to draconian laws which punished you for being gay!

Unfortunately, due to government filibustering, England and Wales will have to wait for some time for Westminster to bring forward a possible legal instrument for doing the same job.

And for Northern Ireland, the political posturing of both the main parties, means that it is highly unlikely that any law will see the statue books within the next 5 years.

The laws were unjust within the UK, and because of them so much of our history has been lost, as people rightly seeked to protect themselves and their families; I hope that sometime soon we can stat to put together our own history and to have it incorporated into the mainstream history – it is jsut as valid, and when you consider people like Alan Turing and how he and others in other professions helped to win our freedoms, then we must strive to get equal.

 

Breaking news & opinion from the B.A.R.

Source: The Bay Area Reporter Online | Park service releases LGBT history study

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Filed Under: History Tagged With: hidden, history, law, LGBT

Human Rights – The Legal Act in the UK

28/09/2016 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

Human Rights ActI asked a friend who is retired with a wide set of experiences in dealing with Human Rights, to give me his impression on the removal of the Human Rights Act from the UK, and what impact it would have.
He believes that repealing this Act which brings into domestic law the European Convention on Human Rights, will be a difficult job for the UK Government. Attempts here (N Ireland) to have a Bill of Rights expanding on those rights conferred by HRA are doomed in the short to medium term, despite the Good Friday obligations. He is part of the Human Rights Consortium and during the past 10 years or more since he started to attend, virtually no progress has been made.
He believes that Brexit will further complicate matters as various parts of these islands work out relationships between each other and the EU.
On the Consortium, they have encountered a lack of interest in the Bill of Rights, with the UK Government, the Irish Government and the NI Executive playing each other off. The DUP, mean as usual, don’t really have much of an idea about the value of rights, unless they are to their narrow benefit. It’s rather depressing!
He feels that one possibility is that Scotland, opposed to repeal or amendment of the HRA, might have its own Bill of Rights. It has vehemently opposed the “regressive” proposals for a British Bill of Rights.
On a case by case basis, any repeal of the HRA will be aired by the UK courts, ending up in the Supreme Court. The courts will not want to have to do what is essentially the work of Parliament. That relationship between Parliament, Government and Judiciary can be fractious at times, particularly here (N Ireland) where issues such as sexual orientation and abortion grab the attention of a very religious and conservative Attorney General.
hr-actN Ireland is still awaiting the reserved judgements in the two marriage cases and the Ashers appeal. And it looks like the current Attorney General in N Ireland is being very wide in his interpretation of his role, and there have been requests that he stand down or stop pursuing his own agenda which seems to definitely have a very select bias from my own and others  observations.
As with all these things we will have to wait and see how things develop, but of one thing I am certain the removal of the current Human Rights Act will not be to our benefit, and I honestly believe that LGBT rights and other diversity groups will suffer if it is taken away.
Links to further reading

  • https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/what-are-human-rights/human-rights-act/human-rights-act-mythbuster
  • http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/scrapping-the-human-rights-act-will-help-protect-human-rights-attorney-general-says-a6894966.html
  • https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/18/conservatives-human-rights-act
  • https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/25/northern-ireland-attorney-general-appeal-ruling-abortion-ban
  • http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/northern-ireland-attorney-general-to-be-involved-in-landmark-brexit-challenge-35070968.html
  • http://www.humanistni.org/dynamic_news.php?id=174

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Filed Under: Anti-Bullying & Homophobia, Campaigns, History Tagged With: European, government, Human Rights, law

High Court rules NI abortion legislation breaches Article 8 of European Convention on Human Rights

30/11/2015 By ACOMSDave Leave a Comment

City Hall
by Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) 
This morning’s High Court judgement [summary] held that the abortion legislation in Northern Ireland breaches Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to provide an exception to the prohibition on abortion in cases of a foetal fatal abnormality (at any time during the pregnancy) or where the pregnancy is the result of sexual crime (up to the date when the foetus is capable of existing independently of the mother).
The application by Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission also covered the rights of women in Northern Ireland where there is a serious malformation of the foetus. However, the judgement concluded that there is no agreement amongst medical practitioners on what constitutes a serious malformation of the foetus.
NIHRC’s chief commissioned Les Allamby described it as a “landmark ruling”. The commission sought to change the law “so that women and girls in NI have the choice of accessing a termination of pregnancy locally in circumstacnes of fatal foetal abnormalities, rape or incest, without being criminalised for doing so”.

We are pleased that today the High Court has held that the current law is incompatible with human rights … Today’s result is historic and will be welcomed by many of the vulnerable women and girls who have been faced with these situations.

Around thirty members of the public and ten journalists listened to large chunks of the long judgement being read out in court over ninety minutes this morning. With only three rows of pews, a Catholic priest and a prominent ant-abortion campaigner sat alongside Amnesty staff and the Human Rights Commissioner.
Amongst the judgement’s references to international law, individual Articles within the European Convention and its appliance in other European jurisdictions, a mini-critique of an opinion piece by Fintan O’Toole, mention of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and the waiving away of the significance of opinion polling to gauge societal, there was mention of the local political situation.

It was noted that in an April 2015 interview, First Minister Peter Robinson indicated that the Department of Justice’s proposals for the reform of the law in Northern Ireland were “doomed”. Mr Justice Horner commented:

This unavoidable inference from the inaction of the Department to date and the comments of the First Minister is that the prospect of any consultative paper, never mind legislative action on pregnancies which are the consequence of sexual crime, is even more gloomy.

Later in his judgement, Mr Justice Horner noted that this application fell into the category of “difficult or unpopular” decisions that can be more easily grasped by the judicial system that legislatures, providing a detached view, albeit not accountable to the electorate.
Amnesty’s My Body My Rights campaign manager Grainne Teggart reacted to the judgement saying:
Today’s court decision is a damning indictment of the Northern Ireland Executive’s failure to prioritise women’s healthcare. It’s shameful that the Courts have had to step in because politicians have repeatedly failed Northern Ireland’s women. Northern Ireland’s abortion laws must be brought into the twenty-first century and into line with international law as a matter of urgency.
Sarah Ewart’s first pregnancy was given a fatal foetal diagnosis and had to travel to England to terminate her pregnancy since NI laws didn’t permit her to receive medical treatment. She reacted to the judgement:
I hope that today’s ruling means that I, and other women like me, will no longer have to go through the pain I experienced, of having to travel to England, away from the care of the doctors and midwife who knew me, to access the healthcare I needed.
Mr Justice Horner noted that while pre-natal life does not enjoy full Article 2 protection in the UK, there is a legitimate aim to protect it where that foetus will be viable but the unborn child faces non-fatal disability:
There should be equality of treatment between, on the one hand, the foetus which will develop into a child without physical or mental disability and, on the other hand, the foetus which will develop into a child with a physical and/or mental disability which is non-fatal. However, it is illegitimate and disproportionate to place a prohibition on the abortion of both a foetus doomed to die because it is incapable of an existence independent of the mother’s womb and the viable foetus conceived as a result of sexual crime.
While there was evidence that forcing young women to travel to GB can have the consequence of imposing an intolerable financial and mental burden on those least able to bear it, there was “not one iota of evidence” that the imposition of criminal sanctions on these women in these exceptional cases has resulted in the saving of any pre-natal life.
For women without family or charitable support, such criminal provisions requiring them to travel to have an abortion would impose a heavy financial burden upon them which would weigh heavier on those with limited means:
The protection of morals … should not contemplate a restriction that penalises the impoverished but can be ignored by the wealthy. It is surely not controversial that requiring women in these exceptional categories to go to England, that is those carrying FFAs and those pregnant as a result of sexual abuse, will place heavy demands on them both emotionally and financially.
While the matter could be left to the Supreme Court to decide, it was better to for the High Court to give a “local” view. [Ed – Perhaps a veiled reminder that a London court would be less likely to understand or take into account the local sensibilities in NI, with a greater likelihood that GB legislation would be applied to NI.]
No party to the application and no argument made in court addressed whether it is possible to read the current legislation in such a way to ensure no offence is committed in respect of the termination of FFAs and pregnancies due to sexual crime before the foetus is able to exist independently of the mother.
Parties have until 9 December to make further submissions on this topic, and a final view on the what relief should be applied is expected before Christmas.
It is thus possible that it may not even be necessary for the Assembly to legislate in reaction to this judgement.
Photo – Kenneth Allen via Wikipedia

 

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Filed Under: Anti-Bullying & Homophobia, History Tagged With: abortion, government, law, northern ireland politics, politics

Gay marriage law comes into effect in Scotland

19/12/2014 By David McFarlane Leave a Comment

Douglas Pretsell, from Edinburgh, and Peter Gloster, from Melbourne, formalised their marriage in SydneyDouglas Pretsell and Peter Gloster formalised their marriage in Sydney

Scotland’s new law on same-sex marriages has come into effect.

Existing civil partnerships can now be converted to a marriage and other same-sex couples can give notice of their intention to wed.
The new legislation was used for the first time shortly after midnight when one couple upgraded their civil partnership at the British consulate in Sydney.
The first gay weddings in Scotland will take place on Hogmanay.
Because Australia is 11 hours ahead, Douglas Pretsell, from Edinburgh, and Peter Gloster, from Melbourne, completed the paperwork to formalise their marriage hours before registrars open for business in Scotland.
The couple have been together for seven years and had their civil partnership in August 2010 at Fenton Tower in North Berwick, East Lothian.
‘It’s official’
Mr Pretsell told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “It was kind of coincidental. we weren’t originally intending to be the first at all.
“We sent an email to the consulate asking how long after the weddings came in that we would be able to change our certificate.
“We got an email back from them, asking if we would be able to come in at 11am on the 16th and saying we would probably be one of the first in the world.”

Leanne and Marie Banks signing the documentsLeanne and Marie Banks were one of the first gay couples in Scotland to become married

The couple earlier said: “We always considered our civil partnership to be our marriage, but in the eyes of the law and society it wasn’t held in the same regard.
“Prior to today, same-sex couples were deliberately treated as though our relationships were inferior and not worthy of the same recognition or respect.
“Well, from today it’s official, we are married and we have the certificate to prove it.”
‘Day of celebration’
One of the first gay couples to become married in Scotland were Leanne and Marie Banks.
They were at Dundee Registrars’ office at 08:45 to sign the documents.
A number of other Scots couples, already in civil partnerships, are also planning to make the conversion.
Others wishing to become married must give the normal 15-day notice period, meaning the first weddings can take place on 31 December.
Tom French, from the Equality Network, which ran the campaign for equal marriage in Scotland, said: “Today is both a day of celebration and a hugely important step forward for LGBTI rights in Scotland, both in terms of equality in the law and the way in which same-sex relationships are viewed in society.
“In recent years Scotland has become a leading light on LGBTI equality, with one of the most progressive equal marriage laws in the world, helping to create the fair and equal society we all want to see.”

Holding handsThe first gay weddings in Scotland will take place on 31 December

Colin Macfarlane, director of Stonewall Scotland, said: “Many of the couples celebrating today and in the weeks and months ahead have been together for decades and in a civil partnership since they were introduced in 2005.
“While there is still lots to do before the lived day-to-day experience of many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is truly equal in Scotland, this is a day of celebration and we know these ceremonies will be a wonderful early Christmas present for many couples, their friends and families.’
The law on same-sex marriages has already changed in England and Wales.
The change in Scotland comes as a survey revealed a huge rise in support for same-sex marriage over the past 12 years.
More than two-thirds of people (68%) agreed that gay couples should have the right to marry, according to the figures from the Social Attitudes Survey, which tracks public opinions on a range of subjects.
The figure compares with just two-fifths of the public (41%) in 2002.
The 2014 survey suggested fewer than a fifth (17%) of Scots were against same-sex marriage, compared to 29% in 2002.
Younger people were more likely to believe gay couples should be allowed to wed than older Scots, with 83% of 18 to 24-year-olds in favour compared to 44% of those aged 65 and above.
MSPs approved the Marriage and Civil Partnership Act at Holyrood earlier this year.
The Scottish government said the move was the right thing to do, but Scotland’s two main churches – the Catholic Church and Church of Scotland – are opposed.
The legislation will see religious and belief bodies opting in to perform same-sex marriages, and ministers have stressed that no part of the religious community would be forced to hold such ceremonies in churches
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-30486804

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Filed Under: History Tagged With: gay marriage, law, scotland

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