Consultation opens on separate jurisdiction for Wales
Welsh Assembly members have begun consulting on the establishment of a separate legal jurisdiction for the principality.
The assembly’s constitutional and legislative affairs committee will spend the next two months assessing how a separation from England would work in practice.
The issue of a separate jurisdiction ‘has become a matter of public interest and discussion,’ the committee’s chair, David Melding, said.
‘The committee believes these developments provide a good opportunity for the technical aspects of this question to be examined and has therefore agreed to conduct an inquiry.’
The consultation will focus on how to define ‘separate Welsh jurisdiction’ and the potential benefits, barriers and costs involved.
Assembly members will also want to know the practical implications for the legal profession and the public, and will look at how other jurisdictions using a common law system operate in the UK.
A referendum in March last year gave the Welsh Assembly extensive law-making powers. First Minister Carwyn Jones is known to be keen to explore the possibilities thus created.
A recent opinion poll found a small majority of the Welsh public in favour of a distinct jurisdiction, although assembly members from both the two main UK parties have expressed reservations about radical change.
Comments
The AMs should tackle school closures first..
"The issue of a separate jurisdiction ‘has become a matter of public interest and discussion,’ the committee’s chair, David Melding, said."
Really?
Just because the Welsh Assembly members have been granted more powers does not mean they should be overlooking the essentials. One is tempted to request the honourable assembly members to spend time debating the school closures in South Wales before tacking matters of legal jurisdiction?
Inevitable
This was an inevitable consequence of devolution and it will happen sonner rather than later.
I am a solicitor of The supreme court of England & Wales but I have NO IDEA of the various laws passed in Wales.
The break up of the UK procedes apace. Yet at the same time the EU rushes towrds a single State. Go figure!!
Absurd proposal
This is possibly the barmiest proposal ever to come out of the Welsh Assembly. Why on earth should the law in Wales be any different to the law in England? Apart from a few fringe elements people in Wales are largely indistinguishable from people in England, and if the existing legal system is good enough for the English it's good enough for the Welsh.
There are 3,000,000 people living in Wales. There are 5,000,000 living in Yorkshire. I've no doubt the average Yorkshireman feels as alienated from London as the average Welshman, so if Wales can have its own legal system why shouldn't Yorkshire follow suit?
And who's going to pay for this preposterous exercise in self-indulgence? Yes, of course, the long-suffering English, who already subsidise Wales and Scotland to an unacceptable degree.
If the Welsh want to go their own way by all means let them do so, but not at the expense of the English taxpayer.
No real need for separate jurisdiction in Wales!
Out of all the English counties I should think that Yorkshire and Cornwall more than any other tended to have argued more for regional identity without demanding devolution in any meaningful terms. In Wales devolution was a close call. There was much public apathy to the assembly with only 53% saying yes to the 50% or so total voting population. Since then, the assembly has done much to justify its existence but I always get the impression that there is a constant need to reassert itself as a credible institution. Why? Wales had never been an English county. It is a principality with its own proud identity and history, however intrinsically linked the recent history has been to England.
Having spent a significant part of my life in the Welsh Capital I for one really feel that an additional layer of bureaucracy is being proposed under the guise of protesting against the Westminster proposal to merge county courts and claims management processes.
In the Neath Port Talbot region 1 in 5 small schools might close down to create larger ones. This would mean local children would have to travel greater distances. Travel times, greater congestion, fuel costs and increased pollution would be the result to add to the problem or larger class sizes. All this to save costs? Legal jurisdiction change would only cost more; money that could be better utilised to save the schools in Wales.