Our final current petition is PE782, by Mark Colquhoun, on the law of treason. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to take a view on modernising the treason law in the United Kingdom, to consider that the recommendations of the Law Commission for England and Wales in 1977 on the reform of the law in that area have never been implemented, and to make representations to the UK Parliament on the issue as appropriate.At its meeting on 10 November 2004, the committee agreed to seek comments from the Law Commission for England and Wales on the petition. In particular, we asked for reasons why the commission's 1977 recommendations have yet to be implemented and whether the commission is still minded to support implementation of the reforms.In its response, the Law Commission for England and Wales states:"The principle reason why there has not been implementation of proposals to reform the law of Treason is that although we did publish Working Paper 72 in 1977, no final report was issued to the Government containing recommendations for reform"and that"We would not support the implementation of the proposals made in 1977 because they are now out of date."
Official Report · Committee
Current Petitions
Treason Law (PE782)
Speakers
Choose an MSP to read only their contributions- Michael McMahon Lab 3
- Mike Watson Ind 2
- John Scott Con 2
The record
8 contributionsI have a question for the clerks. Has a copy of that letter been sent to Mr Colquhoun? If it has not, it might be an idea to do so and to ask for his comments. We might also ask the Executive and the Scottish Law Commission whether they have any views on the matter. I do not think that the matter is high on anybody's list of priorities; nonetheless, the law has not been changed for a considerable time.
I agree that if the petitioner does not have a copy of the responses, they should certainly be sent to him. However, the final sentence in Steve Humphreys' response sums things up. He says:"There is, so far as we know, no pressure from Government for us to return to this subject"following the last review in 1977. It is one thing to have an explanation as to where we are, but quite another for the committee to be seen to be apparently seeking to review the law of treason. We would be doing that tacitly, but is that what we would want to do?
I do not think that we are taking a position, and I did not suggest doing so. We can simply ask the Executive and the Scottish Law Commission for their views, as we have the views of the Law Commission for England and Wales.
I am happy to try to find out the Scottish Law Commission's views, but I do not expect to be surprised by its response.
Are members happy with that suggestion?Members indicated agreement.
As we agreed earlier, we will go into private session to discuss items 4 and 5.
Meeting continued in private until 13:30.
In this meeting
Everything on 2 Feb 2005 →- Scottish Parliament Public Petitions Committee Wednesday 2 February 2005 Petitions · 1
- Items in Private Procedure · 1
- New Petitions Petitions · 69
- New Petitions Petitions · 53
- New Petitions Petitions · 69
- New Petitions Petitions · 1
- New Petitions Petitions · 34
- New Petitions Petitions · 9
- Current Petitions Petitions · 1
- Current Petitions Petitions · 4
- Current Petitions Petitions · 7
- Current Petitions Petitions · 3
- Current Petitions Petitions · 6
- Current Petitions Petitions · 6
- Current Petitions Petitions · 4
- Current Petitions Petitions · 8
The type of each item (debate, statement, questions, members’ business and so on) and the times shown are worked out by this site from headings, the chair’s opening words and the Official Report’s running timestamps. They are not the Parliament’s own classification. Text: the Scottish Parliament Official Report.