A PETITION has been lodged at Holyrood demanding the abolition of any and all exemptions in Scottish law which have been made for the royal family.
The Scottish Parliament petition further calls for all details of instances where the monarchy has lobbied for changes in Scottish law to be made public, and for them to be reversed.
It comes after reports that the late Queen was given advance sight of Holyrood bills, allowing her to secretly lobby for changes, on at least 67 occasions. These included bills dealing with property taxation, protections from tenants, and planning laws.
This constitutional mechanism, called Crown Consent, sees the monarch given an opportunity to look over prospective laws that could affect her property and public powers. It is not the same as Royal Assent, which is given to bills to make them acts of Parliament.
Campaign group Our Republic – which has lodged the petition – said that the ascendance of King Charles provided “an opportunity to reset the relationship between our Parliament and his family”.
Their petition further calls for any future communications between the monarchy and government or parliament to be “fully transparent” to prevent any such alterations to Scottish laws being implemented in the future.
Previously, former MSP Andy Wightman had bid for rule change to prevent the monarch having the chance to change Scottish laws.
Our Republic convener Tristan Gray said: "With a new monarch comes an opportunity to reset the relationship between our Parliament and his family. No other family in Scotland is afforded the power to vet our laws in advance, with direct and secretive access to our Government to do so.
"It is about time the Scottish people were treated honestly and fairly, the history of this practice made transparent, and an end to this special-treatment lobbying behind closed doors. The people of Scotland are equal under law, our parliament should ensure that we can be certain that is true without exceptions."
The petition page states that five MSPs had previously been contacted about the issue: Labour’s Foysol Choudhury and Sarah Boyack, and the Tories’ Sue Webber, Jeremy Balfour, and Miles Briggs.
Briggs is the only one of the five to have responded, indicating he was not supportive of the petition. The Scottish Tories have been asked for his reasoning.
Representatives for the royals have previously refused to say how many times the crown consent process had been used to seek or obtain alterations to legislation.
Writing for The National in 2021, legal expert Andrew Tickell said that the concept of what constitutes “crown interests” – allowing the monarch to have foresight of a bill – is “astonishingly wide”.
“Since the advent of devolution, the palace has resisted being subject to laws which apply to every other landowner and citizen in this country,” Tickell wrote.
You can view and sign Our Republic's petition to "end legal loopholes for the monarchy" here.
