First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has claimed it would be “deeply, democratically wrong” if vanquished MPs were made members of the House of Lords.
She claimed the institution in London was an outrage and members with “no democratic mandate should not be writing the laws of our land”.
Ms Sturgeon spoke out after Stewart Stevenson, SNP MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast, called on the 101 Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords to consider resigning after the party’s general election defeat which left it with just eight seats in the UK.
“Would it not be a democratic affront if any politician rejected by the electorate were to return to Westminster by appointment to the House of Lords,” he asked.
The SNP, unlike the unionist parties, do not appoint people to the House of Lords and want it scrapped.
There has been speculation that former Inverness, Nairn, Lochaber and Nairn Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander could be given a seat in the second chamber.
Baronet John Thurso, former MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, sat in the House of Lords in the 1990s until his hereditary right was abolished and it remains to be seen if he will seek a return.
Former Deputy First Minister and Aberdeen South Lib Dem MSP Lord Nicol Stephen took up his seat in 2011 while former First Minister Jack McConnell – known as Lord Glenscorrodale – was made a member the year before.
Former Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie and Jim Wallace, who was Mr McConnell’s right-hand man in the Scottish Executive, are also peers.
Ms Sturgeon said: “It would be deeply democratically wrong for MPs who were defeated in the election to find their way back to Westminster via seats in the House of Lords.
“I hope that Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats will each give a clear commitment that they will not seek to get round the democratic will of the Scottish people in that way.”