this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
26 points (96.4% liked)

Scotland

478 readers
30 users here now

Fàilte gu Alba!

Mon in tae Scotland!

Welcome to Scotland!

Quick rules:

Have at it, and haste ye back

Related communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Just a shame Douglas Ross wasn't forced to resign. Sensible change, now let's see other jobs added. Elected and well paid: no second jobs period!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

In Scotland? I don't think so. In the world, ever? Certainly, there's examples from America, which means it's not impossible to become a thing here at some point.

My worry is more about the point of barring certain people from being able to hold office rather than the specifics of why they're being barred.

If somebody is on the sex offenders list, in a proportionally representative democracy, with a healthy fourth estate, I would hope that would be requirement enough to prevent them from becoming an MSP. If they still managed to get elected, I would hope it's because they managed to prove their reason for being on the list was spurious. It erodes trust in fair and free elections the bigger the list becomes of who can not set the rules.

I know it's a slippery slope argument, but after years of reading other countries' news, it feels a legitimate worry to have. Governments come and go, just because we have a good one now doesn't mean we will in the future. Laws like this could be abused to prevent "undesirables" from holding office.