Supreme Court Judgement Questioned

Neale Hanvey instructed Professor Robert McCorquodale of Brick Court Chambers to produce a legal opinion on the Supreme Court’s ruling that Scotland couldn’t hold a referendum without Westminster’s consent. McCorquodale is an internationally respected academic who was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to be a member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights.

 McCorquodale said: “In my opinion, the Supreme Court in the Scottish referendum reference case made two significant mistakes in its understanding of the application of international law in respect of the right to self-determination.”

His specific focus was on the court’s ruling that the “right to self-determination (which they, incorrectly, call the ‘principle’ of self-determination) does not apply here”.

McCorquodale further argued that there were international legal routes through which Scotland could secure independence – but said they were very limited and “most possible routes require consent by the UK Government”.

He said: “The only possible international legal route available for the people to Scotland to bring their claim for the right to self-determination by secession is through the support of States for an Advisory Opinion to the ICJ [International Court of Justice]."

uk.news.yahoo.com/top-scots-lawyer-analyses-supreme-121811239.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHkIfdpdbj0kwdI-OZUiQXEidWxiJV4dAwVgJ0gtb0diJDoCinpRWUmFoBOE2vgO7dlYR_dzA_TJFFnWWaGfk1KwZ_BvbKoSkAaHAnwGuM8YcJtHqnRcCmcsga_is0AgvjrfNeCTK-woCNFBCp99dFuFWQ3WcZIxz_QlDsBibTny

A Twitter poster named Fergie wrote this on the matter:

There's law; then there's politics. If the UK has to hold Scotland not by consent or democracy, but by withholding a democratic choice, and reliance on the difficulty of having to go international to overcome that, the union has already lost and the UK is in a bad place.