Participation and the political process
The Power Inquiry Report last year highlighted just how much power has been take away from the people, by politicians and civil servants. In theory at least, the Scottish Constitutional Convention ensured that the Scottish Parliament is shaped and developed by a consensus that includes a broad spectrum of society and not just politicians. However, the early promise of a “participative democracy” in Scotland has not been fulfilled. There is an urgent need to debate the distribution and exercise of power in Scotland. In essence, that is a debate about Scotland’s Constitution because it through their constitutions that the people of any country express such matters. It is increasingly clear that the formal political processes are no longer capable on their own of solving the many difficult issues of governance in a rapidly changing world. And there can be little doubt that there has been a widespread collapse of trust in politics and politicians. This is deep rooted and cannot be met by “tweaking the existing system, with a bit a new technology here, or a consultation there. The result is that no political space is being created for the new politics and new ideas to emerge. A new politics will only be born once the structural problems within the present system are addressed” (Helena Kennedy in the introduction to the Power Inquiry Report). The Constitutional Commission could help to create that much needed new political space in Scotland.

The Constitutional Commission will host and facilitate a national debate that will be different in several significant respects:

It will focus on a Scottish Constitution
This will be the first time in the history of Scotland that a national debate takes place on what a Scottish Constitution should be. Until now, all debates about “constitutional matters” have focused on the Union, or independence, or something in between, and have tended to be conducted on adversarial party political lines. The current crisis demands a more mature debate about the Scottish Constitution itself. It will include a strong educational element because, living under an unwritten constitution that can be changed on a whim by whichever party controls Westminster, many people in Scotland are illiterate about the content and significance of constitutions.

It will be guided by the principle that sovereignty resides with the people
If Scotland is to have a written Constitution, the Scottish principle that sovereignty resides with the people implies that it should be the people of Scotland who decide what it should contain, rather than a Parliament or politicians. Similarly, it should be the people of Scotland who decide what relationship they want with England or, indeed, any country.

It will be a world first
To the best of our knowledge, it will be the first time the people of any nation gets to decide what the details of their Constitution should be, as opposed to ratifying it after someone else has decided. This will be a story that could attract the world’s attention. And it is an historic opportunity to draw from the best of the world’s constitutions (there are some excellent ones), as well to add some uniquely Scottish elements.