We are seeing the big flaw in the Scottish 'parliament'. It has no 2nd revising chamber.
It is clear it is not a parliament that can be seen in legislatures in democracies across the globe. They simply don’t work this way. And it’s increasingly obvious why. It was conceived as an assembly, almost like a glorified Strathclyde Regional Council, not a full-blown parliament. It therefore doesn't have checks and balances you would expect in a ‘parliament’ that is passing legislation like this.
And that won’t be happening any time soon if Scotland becomes “independent”. What government would add a revising chamber when it knows it can get everything through without a pesky 2nd chamber.
There is a second thing at play here. Every piece of legislation presented in Holyrood is done on the basis of presumed consent from the UK parliament which provides the Scottish assembly with its legitimacy.
Given the Gender Recognition Bill will have consequences in the rest of the UK which go beyond the remit of Scotland’s devolved powers, the UK could simply remind Ms Sturgeon that the assembly in Holyrood would be acting out-with its powers and, if she continued to seek to implement the Bill, legitimacy could very simply be withdrawn by the UK government for this Bill.
