Lord Advocate
Her Majesty's Advocate , also Lord Advocate, is the Chief Justice of the Scottish Executive and the Crown in Scotland for civil and criminal law.
He lost power due to devolution and the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament . The Lord Advocate is the Attorney General of Scotland and all charges are nominally brought on his behalf. The incumbent is one of Scotland's Great Officers of State . The current Lord Advocate has been James Wolffe since 2016 .
history
Lord Advocate is an ancient office first given to John Ross in 1483, appointed by King James III. was called.
From 1707 to 1998 the Lord Advocate was the Chief Justice of the United Kingdom and the Crown for Scottish Civil and Criminal Law until the Scotland Act 1998 transferred most of the internal affairs to the Scottish Parliament. The Government is now being advised by the Scottish Advocate General on Scottish law.
The Lord Advocate is appointed by the monarch in consultation with Parliament and the Prime Minister.
Parliamentary and government duties
Until decentralization in 1999, all Lord Advocates were members of the UK Government, although that office was not normally a cabinet office. Since the decentralization, the Lord Advocate is no longer automatically a member of the Scottish Executive, because the Scotland Act prohibits this in paragraph 44.
From 1999 to 2007 the Lord Advocate attended weekly Scottish Cabinet meetings. However, in 2007 the new First Minister Alex Salmond decided that the Lord Advocate should no longer attend the meetings. He said he wanted to "depoliticize" this office.
Until decentralization, all Lord Advocates were also members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords , which allowed them to speak before the government. Those who were not members of parliament were raised to life peers . The Scotland Act now allows the Lord Advocate to attend sessions of the Scottish Parliament and to speak there by virtue of his office, even if he is not a member of Parliament.
The Lord Advocate is also the head of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service . He is also responsible for overseeing the drawing up of executive bills and submitting them to the Judical Committee of the Privy Council . Unlike its counterpart for England and Wales, the Lord Advocate is not the head of the bar association.
The Lord Advocate's right to pronounce divorces has been abolished.
Later offices of Lord Advocates
Scottish Supreme Court justices have historically been nominated by the Lord Advocate. From 1842 to 1967 each Lord Advocate later became a judge in one of the higher courts, with only three exceptions in the period thereafter. In many cases the Lord Advocate even moved to the office of one of the two chief judges of Scotland, the Lord President of the Court of Session or the Lord Justice Clerk .
literature
- Lord Advocate . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 16 : L - Lord Advocate . London 1911, p. 992 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
- The career path of recent Scottish law officers. In: Scots Law Times. July 14, 2006.
Individual evidence
- ^ Holyrood approves James Wolffe and Alison Di Rollo as top legal officers . In: The Scotsman , June 1, 2016. Archived from the original on June 5, 2016. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
- ^ Lord Advocate excluded from the new Cabinet. ( Memento of August 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Scotsman. May 23, 2007.