The (virtual) Court of Session will be hearing arguments about whether or not Holyrood can legislate for indyref2 today and tomorrow - case brought by activists like @MartinJKeatings rather than ScotGov, but obvs the ruling could have interesting implications...

As is standard with the Court of Session I don't imagine there will *be* a ruling this week, but the judge says her "intention is to provide an opinion within days rather than weeks"

It's going really well so far anyway, with a row developing between the judge and the QC for the petitioners over the timetable for the hearings which appears to have ended with everyone being muted. So yes, the zoom courtroom has some similarities to your family zoom quiz

Seemingly ScotGov is opposing petitioners' case in court, *not* on the substance of Holyrood's competence to legislate on indyref2 but because they say case is hypothetical and irrelevant at this point. UKgov also opposing - but they are arguing indyref2 is a reserved matter.

Petitioners wanted to get ahold of ScotGov's draft indyref2 legislation for the case, but court refused to make an order to recover it. Petitioners thus say they are "arguing with one arm behind our back" - and that Lord Advocate is "keeping his counsel" on Holyrood's competence

Another layer to the onion of govt positions is that ScotGov formally withdrew from the case as its being heard in August, although the Lord Advocate (...a Scottish minister) is still represented as a defender and is still making the same arguments (on the process, not substance)

There's a lot of complex stuff here - court currently hearing arguments about Oliver Cromwell and the fundamentals of the constitution - but the big-picture thing remains that at the end of it all we could have an important ruling on Holyrood's competence to call indyref2

Whether said ruling would substantially affect the courses steered by Nicola Sturgeon or Boris Johnson is potentially more of a political question, of course, but the fact of it (whatever it turns out to be) may serve to force the issue in advance of the Holyrood election