Published in the Edinburgh Evening News 23 May 2013
It is remarkable that with the referendum debate over
independence for Scotland so well advanced that the public has little idea of
what would be entailed should there be a ‘yes’ vote to leave the United Kingdom
over 300 years after the union of the Parliaments.
The Church of Scotland has done a public service by stating
that the Scottish Government should publish a draft constitution for an
independent Scotland before the referendum so that the voters will have some idea
of how things will change should independence come about.
So far the little detail that has been released by the
Scottish Government indicates that it plans to retain the monarchy as it exists if independence is achieved but this would go against repeatedly successful motions in the
Scottish Parliament that have insisted on the abolition of the existing
discrimination that prevents Roman Catholics acceding to the throne.
But the Church of Scotland’s suggestion that it should crown the monarch of
Scotland seems completely out of date with twenty-first century Scotland. The
2011 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey showed that only 22 per cent of Scots now
identify with the Church and that a majority now have no religious
faith. How can the Church or any religious leaders now claim to represent the
Scottish people?
There is no constitutional reason, other than the Coronation
Oath Act of 1688, to hold a religious coronation. The Act reaffirms the
privileges of the Church of England and of Protestantism in Scotland. It is
clearly out of date and needs to be amended, whether or not there is Scottish
independence.
In an independent Scotland or in the UK a new monarch could
be sworn into office to ‘govern the people according to law’ by the respective
presiding officers of the Parliaments and no divisive religious oaths would
need to be sworn.
Norman Bonney is emeritus professor at Edinburgh Napier
University. His Monarchy, Religion and
the State will be published by Manchester University Press in October 2013.
