European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill

The European Charter of Local Self-Government (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill is a proposed bill of the Scottish Parliament, which is designed to incorporate the European Charter of Local Self-Government into Scots law.

Scottish Parliament
Long title	An Act of the Scottish Parliament to incorporate in Scots law the European Charter of Local Self-Government, and for connected purposes.
Introduced by	Andy Wightman MSP
Territorial extent	Scotland
Dates
Royal assent	2 May 2023
Status: Not passed

History

James Mitchell, chair in Public Policy at the University of Edinburgh, wrote for an LSE blog, recommending incorporating the Charter into Scots law.^[1]

Andy Wightman introduced the bill to safeguard certain rights of local government.^[2]

In 2020, the Law Society of Scotland released a document describing their concerns with the bill.^[3]

Reference to the Supreme Court

The UK government referred the bill to the Supreme Court.^[4][5] The Supreme Court upheld the challenge to the bill.^[6]

Aftermath of Supreme Court judgement

The Scottish Government has promised to introduce a version of the bill which would address the issues raised in the Supreme Court judgement but this has not happened yet.^[7]