Public petitions are playing a surprisingly large and serious part in the life of the Scottish parliament. The Guardian Devolution was intended to produce a more open and participatory political process. Scotland's parliament was supposed to be the antithesis of Westminster with its remote decision-making and obscure procedure. But of all the innovations it has been the growth of a system of public petitions to parliament that has been most surprising.
Most parliaments have some form of petitions process.
Indeed Westminster's has been in existence since 1571, and a right to petition the monarch dates from Magna Carta. At Westminster, though, the use of petitions to influence parliamentary activity has long fallen into disuse. Individuals and pressure groups still use the process but must route their petitions through MPs. MPs present them in the Commons briefly, before they disappear into the civil service bureaucracy to await replies from ministers many months later. The new Scottish system could not be more different, particularly in its impact on the functioning of the parliament.