Scotland’s government has been experiencing frequent legal defeats, with the most recent being its failed attempt to challenge the blocking of its gender reform bill. Lady Dorrian, one of Scotland’s most senior judges, revealed that since April 2016, 4,946 civil cases involving the Scottish government have gone to court. Many of these have been high-level legal battles over issues from domestic policy to constitutional clashes, with the government coming out on the unsuccessful side in most. While disagreements between the SNP-led administration in Edinburgh and the Conservative one in London are regular, the recent turbulence has led to the governments ending up in court regularly.
Brexit catalyzed Scottish constitutional clashes as the UK government decided to go ahead with its Withdrawal Bill despite the wishes of MSPs. This prompted MSPs to pass their own legislation; however, UK law officers challenged the Holyrood “continuity bill” at the Supreme Court. While the bill fell down on one ground, the judges said that it could have stood up on most others – “as a whole” it was within devolved competence. It later emerged that after the bill had passed, UK ministers had added their Withdrawal Act to a special list of bills that cannot be modified by the devolved administrations. This led to great parts of the continuity bill being found unlawful by Scottish ministers.
The Scottish government has also experienced self-inflicted defeats in attempting to achieve its own political goals. For instance, in 2022, Nicola Sturgeon asked the Supreme Court to rule whether Holyrood had the power to legislate for an independence referendum. While ministers thought they could win by claiming that the referendum would only be advisory and not trigger independence on its own, the court unanimously ruled that MSPs could not set up a vote without Whitehall’s authorization.
These legal battles come at a hefty cost to the Scottish government as campaign groups
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