The Donald Dewar Memorial Debate Tournament

Our annual debating tournament brings together over 60 teams from across Scotland for a year of debating, with just one team crowned the winner at the grand final. Established in 1999, the Donald Dewar Memorial Debate tournament, run in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Law Society and dedicated to the memory of the former First Minister Donald Dewar MSP, is Scotland’s largest annual schools debating tournament.

The debate gives pupils across Scotland the chance to develop skills in:

• Analysis of a motion and identification of key issues, arguments and facts

• Research - across a range of sources

• Preparation of a logical, coherent, structured and factually supported argument

• Preparation for questions and issues that may be raised by an opposing team, and being able to deal with those questions when they arise

• Rebuttal

• Summing up 'threads' of an argument from both sides of the debate

• Confidence and presentation skills

Not only is this relevant to presenting a legal case, but also to how law is formed initially by parliamentarians and their advisors. We believe that active participation in democracy requires the principles of debate to be understood - to allow them to be applied in environments as diverse as the formal settings of parliament, councils and committees through to informal use to discuss issues of relevance to young people and students.