It's late and I'm pretty tired so I may be missing something here, but it appears to me that the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 may not be complying with the requirements of Schedule 19 to the Coronavirus Act 2020. Schedule 19 is the powers under which Scottish Ministers have made all of the coronavirus restrictions regulations. Schedule 19 gives them broad powers in relation to what the regulations may contain. This includes what schedule 19 terms "special restrictions and requirements".

On Tuesday the First Minister of Scotland stood in the Scottish Parliament and asked people not to visit other households inside their own homes while indicating that the law would change on Friday to make it an offence. It's 23:58 on Thursday night and no regulations making that change to the law have been published on the official public website which holds all UK legislation. Is the law actually changing? What is the law of the land which people are required to follow?

In evidence to @SP_Justice the Minister for Community Safety has repeatedly made the point that she agrees with the principle that a pursuer in a defamation case should be required to show that they had, in fact, suffered harm as a defence of the serious harm test. This is makes no sense; if the purpose is to require the Pursuer to provide evidence to the court that harm has occurred (rather than it being an inference that harm has occurred from a defamatory statement) then why use the word "serious"? Surely if the policy intention is just to require the

Today I watched the evidence given to @SP_Justice on Tuesday on behalf of @Lawscot and @FacultyScot on the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Bill. Lots of really good points from both witnesses. Firstly, on the issue of serious harm and why we're simply adopting an English solution to an English problem. As was pointed out the Scottish Parliament started in 1999 with the idea of finding Scottish solutions to Scottish problems. The nuisance that the serious harm test in English and Welsh law was seeking to address simply doesn't exist in

This response to a FOI request (not made by me), answered by the ICO in June 2020, is insightful: it has one record for a prosecution in Scotland "relating to the sharing of inaccurate or unlawful data" (it was in 2007 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court): ico.org.uk/media/about-th… Yet, the ICO website records the outcome of six prosecutions in England (and I mean England, not England and Wales) between 7 Feb 2019 and 13 March 2020 on its website: ico.org.uk/action-weve-ta…

Witness to the Justice Committee on the Defamation and Malicious Publications (Scotland) Bill: "Given that England and Wales now has a statutory defence it does make sense for Scotland to be on the same page as our nearest neighbors (...) If we don't reform our defamation law in line with England and Wales then there is a danger of not having up to date case law." Why? I'm not saying that E&W hasn't gone the right way or that we would be wrong not to replicate them, but why just because E&W has done something must Scotland follow? The Anglicisation of

This highlights all of the issues with the current legal aid system. £3,000 for solicitors who acted in a case in the Supreme Court which involved issues of fundamental importance to children and families and which was argued over a period of 2 days before the court. Outrageous.

https://twitter.com/ScottishLegal/status/1296068693353549824

This is something that, ultimately, requires to be addressed by @ScotGovJustice, @HumzaYousaf & @ashtenRD. Legal aid, civil & criminal, is of fundamental importance in a democracy that emphasises the rule of law. There are not votes to be won in legal aid, but that's irrelevant.

On the legal advice issue; legal privilege is important and a fundamental right (even for the government). It can be waived by the client (in this case the Scottish government). The starting point for the Government is paragraph 2.38 of the Scottish Ministerial Code which states

https://twitter.com/murdo_fraser/status/1295471314585690112

Ministers may state that they have received legal advice on a particular issue but "must not divulge either who provided the advice or its contents ". There is an exception to this general prohibition in paragraph 2.40 which provides that Ministers may reveal the contents of

The Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 have been amended again; this time by the The Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions) (Scotland) Amendment (No. 11) Regulations 2020. These amendment regulations insert a new Regulation 4ZA into the original regulations which requires restaurants, cafes, bars, public houses and hotels in which food or drink is sold for consumption on the premises to: (1) obtain and record visitor information; (2) record visitor information in a filing system suitable for recording,

Hold for Edinburgh Airport - looks like flights are diverting to Glasgow International and Glasgow Prestwick Another RYR off to Glasgow Prestwick - the other airacraft in the hold are also RYR and will probably break out of the hold soon and divert to PIK as well.

#SQAResults Datatilsynet (the Norwegian ICO) has issued an "advance notification" to the International Baccalaureate Organization in respect of the grades awarded to IB students in Norway. The Advance notification is a preliminary stage prior to a final decision being taken. It gives notice to the IBO that Datatilsynet is considering ordering the rectification of grades awarded. As with other qualification awarding bodies, the IBO faced a situation where examinations were cancelled as a result of COVID-19. They introduced an adjusted process for the

Under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 Police Scotland have advised the following: each authorisation was a separate authorisation and both were made by ACC Higgins. Their response states that "Police Scotland was in receipt of credible intelligence providing

https://twitter.com/alistair_sloan/status/1274655103174180870

information on opposing groups of people travelling throughout the city with the intention of converging in Glasgow City Centre for the purpose of demonstrations and serious violence." Anything more detailed has been withheld under section 35(1)(a) and (b) of FOISA.

A free and independent judiciary able to make decisions without fear or favour is as important in a democracy as free and fair elections. In this country the courts are not supreme, Parliament is. Parliament, not the executive, is the check on the judiciary. Parliament can make

https://twitter.com/AndrewSperling/status/1287372345615749120

and unmake any law that it wishes. If the Executive thinks that the judiciary got something wrong then its solution, once it has run out of appeals, is to make its case in Parliament where the law can be changed. It is not to "curb" the judiciary. This is constitutional vandalism

The duplicity continues. Yes, there was plenty of information about job losses. It all came from the Remain campaign and was positively dismissed by those campaigning to leave. I suspect few who cast a vote for leave thought or believed that their job may be at risk by doing so.

https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1281879602995048451

There have been a number of issues since 2016. The result to leave has been re-defined multiple times since then. When, in reality, all that it required was what happened on 31 January 2020 - the UK ceased to be a member of the EU. The result of the referendum cannot honestly

Missed this interesting Opinion from Tuesday: Prior, Burns & Millbank v Scottish Ministers and Lord Advocate: scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-s… Where a Petitioner is seeking to deploy an entirely new argument in a JR, a Minute of Amendment is required in order to amend the Petition accordingly. The new requirement for permission adds a further important reason for requiring a MoA

Interesting Inner House decision on Judicial Review (including some comments on the history of reclaiming) and in particular what the function of the Inner House is under section 27D of the Court of Session Act 1988: scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-s… On reclaiming generally

Judgment is to be given by the UKSC this morning in the appeals by ABC and XY. These are important cases concerning relevant persons in the context of Childrens' Hearings. The giving of the judgment will be live streamed on the UKSC website (supremecourt.uk) at 09:45. In a judgment given by Lady Hales and Lord Hodge (with which Lords Kerr and Wilson and Lady Arden agree) both appeals are dismissed. The judgment is here: supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uks… and the press summary here: supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uks…

Opinion of the High Court in Lord Advocate's Reference No. 1 of 2020 considering "the circumstances in which a firearm may be said to be disguised as another object for the purposes of section 5(1A)(a) of the Firearms Act 1968": scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-s… The court holds that it is not a defence to a charge under section 5(1A)(a) that the firearm is a dual purpose item or weapon

.@UKSupremeCourt is hearing a rare appeal in a Scottish criminal matter. The court has a very limited jurisdiction to decide on points of law pertaining to ECHR rights and EU law. It has no general jurisdiction and cannot exercise the powers of the High Court of Justiciary. It cannot, for example, quash a conviction. It can only decide whether there has been a breach of convention rights or EU law and thereafter has to remit back to the High Court to decide how that affects the conviction and what the next steps should be. Today's case concerns the

Interesting. The quarantine rules for persons arriving in the UK will be made under an Act of Parliament that extends only to England & Wales. Thereby meaning the SI won't cover persons entering the UK via Scottish and Northern Irish airports or ports without either (a) action by

https://twitter.com/PaulFScott/status/1267569015884517377

the UK Government under some other statutory instrument or (b) by the Scottish and Northern Irish Governments (would they even have competence - is it a public health or an immigration matter?). Given that the UK Government has thus far left the use of the 1984 Act up to the

There is so much about this engagement that is wrong. From the video it can reasonably be inferred that this officer was going to conduct a stop and search regardless of the answers to her questions. Let's explore it in a bit more detail. She asks what he's doing; he answers that

https://twitter.com/D_Tribal/status/1266019403889618944

he is meeting a friend and getting some fresh air. This is relevant and I shall return to it in a moment. The Officer asks him whether he lives around there; the individual answers in the affirmative. No further questions are asked to establish the veracity of that claim. What