The Development of Devolution

Thursday 20 November 2008
“The Development of Devolution”
Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs Annual Lecture

This year's Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs annual public lecture will be “The Development of Devolution and Legal Wales” which will be delivered by Mr Winston Roddick Q.C., former Counsel General to the National Assembly for Wales.

The lecture will be held on Friday, November 28th at 7pm in the Main Hall of the International Politics Department, Aberystwyth University. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Winston Roddick is the leader of the Wales and Chester courts circuit. He became Queen's Counsel in 1986 and a Recorder in 1987. When the National Assembly for Wales was created in 1999, he was appointed as its first Counsel General. Since then he has returned to working as a barrister, and is also the Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Legal Wales and the Vice-President of Aberystwyth University.

The lecture is organised by the Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs which is part of the Department of Law and Criminology at Aberystwyth University.

The Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs was launched in January 1999 to consolidate, and provide a focus for, the Department’s expertise and work on the law as it applies within Wales and on general legal developments of relevance to Wales.

A key aim of the Centre is to explore whether there is a distinct Welsh perspective on general legal questions within the common legal system of England and Wales and to ensure that Welsh legal developments are placed in the wider context of developments at the UK, European and international levels.

The establishment of the Centre was prompted by devolution, the setting up of the National Assembly for Wales and the emergence of a more distinct Welsh legal order. Work on the operation of devolution currently forms a large part of the Centre’s activities, both as regards the public law side concerning the structures and operations of the Assembly itself and the substantive law and policy developed by the Assembly.

However, the work goes wider than the process and operation of devolution: other relevant projects being carried out by members of the Centre include work on human rights, freedom of information, the Welsh language, and criminal justice in a Welsh context. 

Further information regarding the Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs can be found on the Centre’s website: http://www.aber.ac.uk/cwla/index.htm.