Treason and Lords of Justiciary and counterfeiting the Great Seal of Scotland remain treason under sections 11 and 12 of the Treason Act 1708 respectively. Treason is a reserved matter about which the Scottish Parliament is prohibited from legislating. Two acts of the former Parliament of Ireland passed in 1537 and 1542 create further treasons which apply in Northern Ireland. The penalty for treason was changed from death to a maximum of imprisonment for life in 1998 under the Crime And Disorder Act. Before 1998, the death penalty was mandatory, subject to the royal prerogative of mercy. Since the abolition of
United Nations moratorium on the death penalty being its resolution 2005/59 of 20 April 2005, in which the Commission called upon states that still maintain the death penalty to abolish it completely and, in the meantime, to establish a moratorium on executions, "Recalling further" the important results accomplished by the former Commission of Human Rights on the question of the death penalty, and envisaging that the Human Rights Council could continue to work on this issue, "Considering" that the use of the death penalty undermines human dignity, and convinced that a moratorium on the use of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement and progressive development of