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Law and change: Scottish legal heroes
Law and change: Scottish legal heroes

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Week 8: Making a difference: becoming involved

Introduction

Throughout your studies on this course, you have learnt that law impacts on us all on a daily basis, from the beginning to the end of our lives. It sets out the principles by which we are governed. Laws lay down the foundations and act as a framework for our education, work and personal and private lives. Law provides protections and remedies when things go wrong and provides mechanisms by which both individuals and the state can take action to uphold rights and seek remedies. Laws and the legal system are inextricably linked with all our lives. Laws set out how we are governed, how the legal system operates, how we can seek sanctions, remedies or punishments and provide mechanisms to enable us to seek solutions. It can often seem remote as if things run smoothly, we rarely, at a personal level, have to have recourse to the law.

In Week 7 you explored how and why decisions of public bodies may be challenged. In this final week you build on this and explore how you as an individual can contribute to the process of legal change and lawmaking.

By the end of this week you will be able to:

  • explain how an individual can contribute to parliamentary lawmaking
  • explore ways of contributing to legal change
  • understand the role of elected officials such as local councillors, MSPs and MPs in lawmaking.