The Scottish government announced Wednesday that it will ask the judiciary to review the UK government’s decision to veto the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The legal challenge is against Scottish Secretary of State Alister Jack’s veto of the bill by using Section 35 of the Scotland Act, stopping the bill from receiving Royal Assent after it was passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2022.

The Gender Recognition Reform Bill would allow trans people over the age of 16 to obtain a gender recognition certificate to recognise their new ‘acquired gender’ upon self-declaration. The bill also has safeguards against misuse. For example, false applications are considered criminal offences.

Upon announcing the challenge, Scottish Social Justice Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said that ‘the UK Government gave no advance warning of their use of the power, and neither did they ask for any amendments to the Bill throughout its nine-month passage through Parliament’. She asserted that the use of section 35 is a challenge to the Scottish Parliament’s devolved powers and that it ‘should be legally tested in the courts’.

In December 2022, Scotland’s then-Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison said that the bill ‘simplifies and improves the process for a trans person to obtain a gender recognition certificate’, a process which she describes as ‘intrusive, medicalised and bureaucratic’. One month later in January 2023, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke to the Guardian and acknowledged widespread ‘concerns’ over the bill regarding women’s and children’s safety.