Plaid Cymru is, so far as I know, the only political party in Wales to have taken a position on the issue of a Welsh legal jurisdiction. (The Welsh Government has, but that’s a government not Labour Party matter.) Responding to the recent WGC/Constitution Unit report, Leanne Wood said such a jurisdiction was ‘essential’.
This is not policy-making off the cuff. In 2010, Plaid Cymru held an internal discussion about the establishment of a Welsh legal jurisdiction and the form it should take. As their ‘consultation paper’ from that exercise isn’t otherwise available, and given the developing debate about this issue, with Plaid’s permission I’ve uploaded the paper in PDF format. The English version is available here, and the Welsh one is here.
Commenting as a retired solicitor from Bristol, splitting the English and Welsh legal professions would be very, very, inconvenient. Those who qualified in Wales would be restricted to Wales. Those who qualified in England, even if of Welsh descent, would be unable to work in their homeland. There would undoubtedly be a small and self-congratulatory crachach that would benefit from this, but nobody else would. Had such been the position in the 1960s, would we now have our excellent Lord Chief Justice? He would have been compelled to choose which jurisdiction to aspire to.
For historical reasons, we already have in the common law world, rather too many small jurisdictions with tiny professions. Do we really want any more?
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