Ethical Standards in Public Life Etc. (Scotland) Act 2000

The Ethical Standards in Public Life etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 (asp 7) is an Act of the Scottish Parliament which established that the Scottish Ministers had to issue a code of conduct for councillors, and put in place mechanisms for dealing with councillors in contravention of the code. It was introduced by Scottish Executive minister Wendy Alexander.

The Act was most notable for its repeal of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 in Scotland, which had prevented local authorities from "the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship." This repeal was highly controversial, and Stagecoach Group founder Brian Souter led a campaign against it. The bill did require that councils would, in their dealings with children, have to regard the value of a stable family relationship, and that any education about family life would be appropriate to the child's age and development.

It passed on 21 June 2000 with 99 votes for and 17 against, with 2 abstentions, and received Royal Assent on 4 July 2000. The Local Government Act 2003 repealed Section 28 in England and Wales three years later.

Read more about Ethical Standards In Public Life Etc. (Scotland) Act 2000:  Ethical Standards in Public Life Framework, Standards Commission For Scotland, Chief Investigating Officer, Restricted Applicability

Famous quotes containing the words ethical, standards, public, life and/or act:

    There are two kinds of liberalism. A liberalism which is always, subterraneously authoritative and paternalistic, on the side of one’s good conscience. And then there is a liberalism which is more ethical than political; one would have to find another name for this. Something like a profound suspension of judgment.
    Roland Barthes (1915–1980)

    It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    Nature has ordained that the man who is pleading his own cause before a large audience, will be more readily listened to than he who has no object in view other than the public benefit.
    Titus Livius (Livy)

    If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    of artists dying in childbirth, wise-women charred at the stake,
    centuries of books unwritten piled behind these shelves;
    and we still have to stare into the absence
    of men who would not, women who could not, speak
    to our life—this still unexcavated hole
    called civilization, this act of translation, this half-world.
    Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)