“We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs….”

To affirm or re-affirm your commitment to the Claim of Right on its 20th anniversary contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  

These are the key words of the summary of the 1989 Claim of Right accepted at the founding of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, and signed by its members: approximately 80% of elected MPs, MEPs and Local Government representatives, and representatives of Scottish civil society – the STUC, the churches, ethnic minorities, women’s groups, business and industry.

The Scottish constitutional principle of the sovereignty of the people (arguably traceable right back to the Declaration of Arbroath) has been asserted in three ‘Claims of Right’ since the union of the crowns in 1603.   The 1689 Claim asserted the primacy of the law over the royal prerogative and claimed our right against monarchical misgovernment.  In 1842 a second Claim of Right resisted the encroachment of English-style patronage in the Church and sought to protect the terms of the Treaty of Union of 1707.

In response to an invitation by the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, and supported by a report from the Church and Nation Committee of the Church of Scotland, a group of prominent Scots produced the third Claim of Right for Scotland, and presented it to the CSA.

The authors of this Claim were Prof. Sir Robert Grieve, FRSE (Chairman), W.R,Anderson, Ian Barr, Rev. Maxwell Craig, Sandra Farquhar, Prof. Nigel Grant, Joy Hendry, John Henry, Pat Kelly, Isobel Lindsay, Una Maclean Mackintosh, Prof.D.Neil MacCormick, Paul H. Scott CMG, Judy Steel, Canon Kenyon Wright.  The Secretary was Jim Ross.  They thus brought to their task a wide range of experience in the political, social, religious, academic and cultural life of Scotland.

The document itself is brief (33 pages), and argues that Scotland, as a distinct nation, has its own national life, tradition and culture, recognised in the Treaty of Union by the guarantees to the Scots of their own institutions and policies representing the bulk of civil life and government at that time: the Church, the Law and Education. However “many of the major provisions have been violated, and its spirit has never affected the huge areas of government which have evolved since.”  This has been to the detriment of Scotland and the life and wellbeing of its people.  The shortcomings of the British Constitution and the failure to respect the spirit of the Treaty can only be remedied by the establishment of an elected Scottish Assembly/Parliament. They recommend setting up a Scottish Constitutional Convention to draw up a scheme for a Scottish Assembly, to mobilise Scottish opinion behind that scheme, and to secure approval of it or an acceptable modification of it.

The Campaign for a Scottish Assembly accepted this Report, and set about organising the Scottish Constitutional Convention, which was duly launched in 1989, at the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh. To the fear of the (UK) Government saying “No” Kenyon Wright replied with the ringing words: “We are the people, and we say YES!” To public applause, the members of the Convention all signed the Claim of Right.