The Act Procedure for remedial orders: urgent cases
96.Section 14(1) confers power on the Scottish Ministers, for reasons of urgency, to make a remedial order forthwith without applying the procedure specified in section 13.
97.The remainder of section 14 specifies the procedure that the Scottish Ministers must follow having made an urgent remedial order.
98.Section 14(2) provides that the Scottish Ministers must, after making the order, give appropriate public notice of the contents of the order, inviting comments in writing to be made within a period of 60 days beginning with the day the order was made. Ministers must also lay the order before the Scottish Parliament with a statement of reasons for having made it.
99.Section 14(3) provides that the Scottish Ministers must have regard to comments made within the stipulated period. Section 14(4) provides that as soon as practicable after the end of the period, Ministers must lay a statement before the Scottish Parliament summarising the comments made and specifying the changes (if any) they consider should be made to the order.
100.Section 14(5) outlines the procedure to be followed if the Scottish Ministers consider that changes should be made to the original remedial order. Ministers must either make a second remedial order which gives effect to those changes and replaces the original remedial order and lay it before the Scottish Parliament or make an order which simply revokes the original remedial order. Section 14(8) provides that an order that simply revokes a remedial order will be made by statutory instrument and that instrument will be made subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the Scottish Parliament (negative resolution procedure).
101.Section 14(6) provides that the Scottish Parliament must, if it so chooses, within a period of 120 days from the date when the original remedial order was made, approve the original order or the second remedial order where it has replaced the original order. If the remedial order is not approved within this time, the remedial order, or as the case may be, the second remedial order, will cease to have effect. However, this will not affect anything done under either order or the power which the Scottish Ministers have to make a new remedial order.
102.Section 14(7) provides that section 14(6) has no effect where the Scottish Ministers simply revoke the original remedial order within the period of 120 days referred to in that subsection.
103.Section 14(9) ensures that any period during which the Scottish Parliament is dissolved or is in recess for more than 4 days does not count towards the 60 day period specified in section 14(2)(a) or the 120 day period specified in section 14(6).