The Scottish Devolution and the 2014 referendum: What are the potential reverberations in Spain?

Abstract

This article discusses the Scottish Devolution and the potential repercussion of the 2014 consultative referendum over Scottish independence in Spain. The 2014 referendum might be perceived as one of the many effects of the recent nationalist revival and its result is still a matter of speculations. However, the possibility of seeing the dissolution of one of the oldest western democracies as the result of a referendum is of great concern for constitutional lawyers in Spain. I would argue that a risk of an analogous referendum in Spain is low. The processes that were the proxy for the Scottish referendum over independence are the result of a pragmatic discourse that took place within a distinctively British constitutional history. For instance, both the Scottish and UK constitutional traditions consider their respective parliament the repository of sovereign constitutional power. The article is divided in three parts, preceded by an introduction and followed by a conclusion. The first part is a preliminary methodological discussion that explains the distinctive element of the UK Public Law System. The second explains the distinctive features of the Scottish Devolution. In particular, I will elucidate the effects of having two parliaments (the Scottish and the UK ) that hold on to two different concepts of legislative sovereignty. The third section compares the constitutional process required for the Scottish referendum and a putative referendum over a region secession in Spanish autonomous regions.