Fatal Accident Inquiries (PE1280)
Access to Justice (Non-corporate Multi-party Actions) (PE1427)
Right. Thank you very much, everyone. You have had your little break.
Agenda item 4 is consideration of seven open petitions. I will go through each in turn as they appear in committee paper 3.
We have previously agreed to await primary legislation in respect of PE1280, on fatal accident inquiries, and PE1427, on multiparty actions. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice has said that he will bring forward legislation on fatal accident inquiries in this parliamentary session, and the Scottish Government intends to address multiparty actions in its response to the Taylor review.
Are members content to note the current status of the two petitions and keep them open?
I note that the committee last considered the petitions on 25 September 2012. Have we had any indication from the Scottish Government of timescales for the legislation?
I seem to recall that we asked the cabinet secretary about that during proceedings on a bill. The Government has said that there will be legislation in this session, so obviously it will have to be done within a timescale that will allow the legislation to be enacted, which would be about 18 months at the most.
That is not necessarily the case in relation to PE1427, because we do not have a Scottish Government response to the Taylor review.
Right. Do we wish just to ask the Scottish Government to note our continuing interest in the petitions and to give us an update?
Yes.
Does everybody agree?
Members indicated agreement.
Victims of Crime (Support and Assistance) (PE1403)
We previously agreed to consider PE1403, on support and assistance for victims of crime, as part of our consideration of the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Bill. Of course, the bill has now been enacted. Are members therefore content to close PE1403?
Members indicated agreement.
Corroboration (PE1436)
Again, we agreed to consider PE1436, on retrospective abolition of the requirement for corroboration, as part of our consideration of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. In our stage 1 report on the bill, which is now published, we agreed that if the corroboration requirement is abolished, it should not apply retrospectively. Given that both the Government and the committee have taken a position on the matter, are members content to close PE1436?
Members indicated agreement.
Administrative Justice (PE1449)
PE1449 is on a Scottish council for administrative justice. The Scottish Government has established an interim advisory committee on administrative justice and will assess how it works over the next two years. We have received further correspondence from the petitioners, which is at annex C of paper 3, expressing concerns about the composition of the advisory committee and broader concerns about administrative justice. Can I have members’ comments on whether they wish to keep the petition open to see how things work out with the advisory committee or want to close it on the basis that the Scottish Government is assessing the matter?
I would keep it open for the time being. We still seem to be accumulating information on what is happening and the Tribunals (Scotland) Bill is still making its way through Parliament, so in my view the issue in the petition is still live.
Does anyone dissent from that view? Is it agreed that we keep the petition open?
Members indicated agreement.
Solicitors (Complaints) (PE1479)
PE1479 relates to the time bar for submitting complaints about solicitors. The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has indicated that it intends to undertake a consultation on all its rules, including the time bar, early this year and has offered to consult the petitioner and any other groups suggested by the committee as part of that. Can I have members’ comments on whether they want to keep the petition open or would be happy to close it on the basis that the petitioners could be directly consulted as part of the SLCC consultation?
I could see you revving up there, Alison.
I would prefer that we keep the petition open. I do not think that we have thoroughly addressed the issues that have been raised. I note that the SLCC says that it will consult, but I would prefer that we keep the petition open until we are absolutely sure that it has properly taken on board the concerns that are expressed in the petition. I would be keen to encourage the SLCC to consult more widely than just with those that it has said it will draw into its consultation.
I concur with Alison McInnes’s view. I think that it is worth keeping an eye on the issue, so we should keep the petition open.
I have no issue with that; I think that it is perfectly reasonable.
So, do we agree to keep the petition open?
Members indicated agreement.
Justice for Megrahi (PE1370)
PE1370 calls for an inquiry into the Megrahi conviction. As members know, the Scottish Government has no plans to undertake an inquiry into that conviction. Since our last consideration of the petition, we have received further correspondence from the petitioners and from Police Scotland. Members also now have a copy of a letter from Police Scotland to Mr Robert Forrester, dated this Monday.
Can I have your comments on how we take the petition forward and on whether you wish to close it? John Finnie is first, but I would like to come in on the issue later as well.
As you have rightly said, convener, paragraph 31 in the papers available for public consumption makes it clear that the Scottish Government has no plans to instigate an inquiry. I would find it unfortunate if that remained the position, not least because it pre-empts some of the other matters that I am going to allude to.
I should say that the Justice for Megrahi committee has very generously given our committee some credit for the Scottish Government finally admitting that it actually had powers and a remit under the Inquiries Act 2005, after saying for 18 months that it did not. There is certainly a wide range of issues to examine around that particular aspect.
On the nine allegations that the Justice for Megrahi committee has subsequently made, I point out that they are allegations of serious criminality in what was a mass murder case. We know from the paper that has been circulated the various stages that the allegations have gone through. Three of the issues are frozen, and it is a matter of considerable concern that the Justice for Megrahi committee received no update from Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary, which continues as the Dumfries and Galloway division of Police Scotland. We know—because, convener, you were directly involved in writing the letter—that Deputy Chief Constable Pat Shearer undertook to get back to us in a matter of weeks. We were told that in, I think, September 2013, but the same gentleman retired in October. Key to all of this is the role of the senior investigating officer—indeed, they play a pivotal role in any criminal inquiry—and Mr Shearer was the senior investigating officer in this case.
Convener, the letter that you have alluded to, which was sent by Detective Superintendent Johnstone to Mr Forrester and which, with incredible timing, arrived the day before this committee meeting, intimates that “from this point forward”—the letter is dated 17 February—Mr Johnstone is to be the senior investigating officer. That raises some very legitimate questions. Who, for instance, was the senior investigating officer between Mr Shearer’s departure and Mr Johnstone’s announcement yesterday of his own appointment to the role? Indeed, was anyone acting in that role? In some respects, we could be very reassured by Mr Johnstone’s comment in the letter that the matters
“will be resolved before the end of March”,
but it is strange that he is unable to say how many officers are employed on the inquiry.
All of this adds up to an extremely dismissive approach by the authorities to the Justice for Megrahi committee—and by default, I would suggest, to our committee, which plays an important oversight role. The timing of the letter is entirely cynical. What we have seen is procrastination and obstruction, and whose interests are served by that? We know that Police Scotland undertakes criminal inquiries at the behest of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, and I have to say that, given the nature of the matters under discussion, I cannot see it injecting any urgency into this inquiry.
It is questionable whose interests are being served here. In any case, our obligation is to ensure that the public interest is served, and I have to say that some young man under a breach of the peace charge might well wonder what sort of treatment he would receive from both authorities if such a high-profile mass murder case can result in this kind of response to the legitimate concerns that have been raised—reluctantly, in the case of the criminal ones. We must ensure that there is confidence in the criminal justice system—from those charged with investigating crimes to those charged with prosecuting them.
The issue demands political oversight and I think that this body should be carrying that out. For those reasons—and I await Mr Johnstone’s update with great interest—we should keep the petition open.
I am very cross about this. Mr Finnie calls it procrastination and obstruction; I call it kicking it into the long grass. If there is any strategy with regard to the whole Megrahi issue, it seems to be to kick things into the long grass, wear people out and hope that those who are pursuing the issue fall off their perches and that the matter goes away.
I am angry on behalf of the committee because, as Mr Finnie has pointed out, I said on 24 September that according to a letter from Police Scotland it would be a matter of weeks before we would be able to confirm that the investigation had commenced fully.
On 4 November, we got a letter—which John Finnie mentioned—in which I was told that Deputy Chief Constable Shearer had retired from Police Scotland, but that the matters would not take a long time to resolve and that the timeframe
“is assessed as still being in weeks rather than months.”
As I say, that letter was written in November.
Such is the urgency with which the matter is being dealt that Mr Forrester received a letter only on Monday—it has just arrived on our desks today—telling him that there have been
“recent developments in the live investigation”
and that we are now into March.
12:00On top of that—this is extraordinary—the letter says:
“With regards to your requests to know how many officers are currently working on the enquiry and to know what stage the enquiry is. I am unable to provide you with definitive update in relation to these questions as they are currently being reviewed by myself”.
How long does it take to find out how many officers are working on an inquiry and the stage that that inquiry is at? That should not take until the end of March, unless Detective Superintendent Stuart Johnstone has a very busy workload.
I agree with John Finnie—I see obfuscation here. We should just write directly to the chief constable and ask him how many people are working on the inquiry and what the position is with regard to the other inquiry, and we should say that we require an answer in seven or 10 days or whatever deadline the committee wants to name. It is time that we went to the top of the tree. The situation is nonsense.
I do not know whether other committee members—whether or not they are sympathetic to the Megrahi petition—feel the same way. I see the clerk waving at me. The situation is contemptuous of the committee. We are told that the matter will take weeks, then months, which then becomes, “I dinnae ken, I’ve just got on the job.” It is not good enough.
I declare an interest in that I was on the Public Petitions Committee when we referred the petition to the Justice Committee. I have a great deal of sympathy with the situation. I, too, want an update and clarification. The petition urges the Scottish Government to instigate an inquiry into Mr al-Megrahi’s conviction. We seem to have moved away from that and more on to an investigation of how the police in Dumfries and Galloway are dealing with the matter. I am a wee bit concerned about that and I want an update—
The committee has agreed to write the letters.
I just want a wee bit of clarification. We are moving away from the petition’s original terms. I also was not too happy with the petitioners’ submission. It says:
“We are most disappointed in the apparently dismissive approach being adopted by D&G”—
I assume that that refers to Dumfries and Galloway—
“to our allegations and, by dint of the last consideration of PE1370, the Justice Committee itself.”
What do the petitioners mean by that? I have declared my support for getting something done with the petition.
In addition, it was mentioned that the family of Mr Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi is looking to take the matter to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. Is that true or is that just speculation from the press? Can we have an update on the position? Those are the questions that I want to ask.
First, I cannot answer them; I am not giving evidence.
I am sure that the clerks could look into that.
I appreciate your point that the petition called for an inquiry. However, we wrote letters asking for clarification. I am concerned that—
How is that helping to progress the petition?
Bear with me for a minute. When the Justice Committee writes to request an answer, it is told that the matter will be resolved in weeks. We then get back a letter saying that the police need to push the matter a wee bit further, but that that will still take only a matter of weeks. However, we end up, on the day that the committee is sitting, with a letter telling us that the issue will be resolved in March. I am concerned that if the Justice Committee is being treated in that rather off-hand fashion by Dumfries and Galloway, goodness knows what is happening elsewhere.
I see John Finnie frowning at me.
There is no such entity as Dumfries and Galloway.
It was once called the Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary.
On 1 April last year, things moved on, and the matter should have been picked up.
To pick up on Sandra White’s point, I used the term “pre-empt” because the petition is an opportunity to look beyond what has been examined to date. One would almost understand if there were an enthusiasm on the part of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service or Police Scotland to thoroughly examine the accusations that have been made of serious criminality and to put the issue to bed, but they are not even doing that. It is in that way that we are being treated with contempt.
Of course, were any of those accusations to be founded, that would most certainly be a matter of grave concern to the Scottish Government. That is why I say that the Government is pre-empting the inquiry issue, and why we should keep the petition live.
My recollection of the history of the petition in the Justice Committee is that concerns were expressed—certainly by me and, as I recall, by others—that we should not take a definitive view on the petition while there is the possibility of a further review of Mr Megrahi’s conviction. Obviously, Mr Megrahi has died and, as Sandra White referred to, we have media speculation about whether his immediate family plan a further reference to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. I would have thought that we could make inquiries rather than rely on such speculation. We should leave it to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to determine whether it is prepared to provide us with that information. That is one relevant factor.
The other relevant factor that came in later in the day was the question of further inquiries into allegations of criminality by what was Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and is now Police Scotland. That remains the position. I do not disagree with what the convener and John Finnie have said about Police Scotland’s attitude, as demonstrated by the correspondence, but we need to put the issue in perspective and consider it in the round.
What would your position be, therefore?
I certainly think that we should make inquiries of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to keep the petition open for the time being, and obviously to express what discontent we can about the manner in which Police Scotland has dealt with the issue.
Should we do that to the chief constable?
If you want to write to the chief constable, I do not have a problem with that.
I declared my interest, and I do not want to stymie anything, but we seem to have gone off track. I agree with Rod Campbell that we should try to find out what is happening.
That is one part, but the second part is the way that the committee has been treated. We had correspondence to try to find out what is happening with the other inquiry. We were told that it would take weeks, then months and we now find that it is five and a half months. We have received a letter on the day that we are meeting. In fact, we have received it only because we are meeting. It is no accident that Justice for Megrahi received the letter in time for today’s meeting.
To clarify, the petition asks the Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to instigate an inquiry into Mr Megrahi’s conviction. My understanding is that the Scottish Government has indicated that it has no plans to do so and has in fact suggested that it would be better if a review of the conviction was carried out in the appeal court. Whether the family chooses to begin that process is a different issue. I share Sandra White’s view that we seem to be going off track in considering how Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary or Police Scotland has replied to the committee. Might that particular aspect be referred to the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing? We could then close the petition today, because the Scottish Government has said categorically that it has no plans for a review.
I do not think that it would be competent to send the issue to the sub-committee, because its remit is to deal with the operation of police provisions in the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012.
Is the issue of how the police handle complaints not relevant to the sub-committee?
That would be a general issue, but we are dealing with a specific issue.
We could use the issue as an example.
I do not think that the committee would be happy for the issue to go to the sub-committee, and I do not think that it would be competent to do that.
My understanding is that Justice for Megrahi does not see any role for itself in the appeal to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.
I will say again why I think that we should keep the petition open. Regardless of what members think of the individual merits of the petition, since it was introduced significant criminal allegations have been made. If any of them prove to be founded, they would add weight to the petition and would result in people in Scotland and, I think, the international community calling for the matter to be looked at. So, regardless of what members think of the merits of the petition, it seems completely inappropriate to sist proceedings when there is an on-going criminal inquiry.
I concur with the convener about the sub-committee—I am not keen for the issue to go to it. I want to know what has happened and I want to have the answer from Police Scotland. I am quite happy to keep the petition open, but perhaps we should not try to second-guess what will happen.
I suggest that one of the first things that we must do—this is for the committee to consider—is to write to a member of the family to ask them to clarify once and for all whether they intend to make further application to the SCCRC—I see that John Finnie disagrees. Why should we not do that?
Where is the locus for the Justice Committee in that? It clouds the issue—
It would clarify and get that point out of the way. One of the questions that has been asked is why the family is not doing that.
I am not sure how that relates to the petition.
It would park any inquiry, because if an application is made to the SCCRC there is a prospect of the case returning to the appeal court and the whole thing being opened up again. I was asked what the position of the family is, which is why I made the suggestion.
The Scottish Government’s position, as I understand it, is that a review of the conviction would be best undertaken through an application to appeal in the courts. In effect, only Megrahi’s family can pursue that.
So why do we not write and find out, once and for all?
I am quite happy—we should try to avoid media speculation and see whether the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission will say whether it has received an application.
Do you want me to write to the SCCRC to ask whether it has received an application or any inquiry about an application? We can make it as broad as that.
Members indicated agreement.
Right. That is the first thing. Secondly, on the correspondence with Police Scotland, do you want me to write a rather stern letter to the chief constable about the time that it took to provide information—and not even to us—that we were told would be provided in a matter of weeks? We have not had that information. I can see that Alison McInnes is shaking her head in agreement, but Sandra White is not—
I am not shaking my head in any way at all. Yes, okay, we can write. The point that I wanted to make is that we have gone off the whole issue of the petition—
Yes, we have done, but as the Government keeps telling us, we are where we are, and given that we wrote and asked for information, I think that we are entitled to ask for a straight answer within a proper timescale, instead of having the issue constantly pushed to one side. A response would be published and the petitioners would know about it, and the matter would be closed.
I do not disagree with the suggestion that we write to Police Scotland, but we should maybe make it clear that Pat Shearer got involved once he stopped being chief constable of Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary and transferred to Police Scotland, so it is not D and G Constabulary—
I understand that; that was a slip.
The other point is that Sandra White and Margaret Mitchell are right about the terms of the petition. The petition calls on us to persuade the Scottish Government to conduct an inquiry, and the Scottish Government has said that it does not think that that is appropriate. We might want to do other things, but Sandra is right about the petition.
I am being told that it is entirely up to us whether to be flexible on a petition or to keep to its narrow remit.
For the time being, we want to clarify whether an application or inquiry about an application to the SCCRC for appeal has been made by any member of the Megrahi family or anyone with an interest—in legal terms. Secondly, we will write to the chief constable to express our anger—I am angry; members might be cross rather than angry—that we did not even get a response and that the response went to Justice for Megrahi, despite our being told that we would hear within weeks or months. These are clarifications of fact. Are members content?
Is the purpose of writing to the Megrahi family that if they are not pursuing an appeal we would come back and ask the Government—
We are not writing to them; we are writing to the SCCRC, and it would not just be—
We have moved some considerable way off the petition. Notwithstanding your very deep interest in the matter, convener, which I understand, we have a huge workload and this is the second time that we have looked at the issue. What you are suggesting does not meet the terms of the petition. I am inclined to say that we should close the petition today, because we are going off at a tangent.
Margaret Mitchell wants to close the petition. Who else wants to close it?
We should look at the recommendation that we write to the SCCRC. After that—
So the committee does not want to close the petition. I am proposing that we find out two facts. Is any application or intimation of an application being made to the SCCRC? How many policemen are working on the issue and what is its status? Those are just facts.
Is not that relevant only if we think that the Government is going to change its mind?
As I said, it is entirely up to the committee whether we want to keep within the strict limits of a petition to the Parliament or to expand our consideration. Quite often, petitioners bring a petition and do not realise that they are fencing themselves in. I am not taking a view on that; this is not because I have a personal interest—what I am talking about can happen in any event.
Can we settle on writing to the SCCRC and the chief constable? I thought that we had agreed to do that.
12:15
I certainly agree with both proposals. On Margaret Mitchell’s point, I ask whose interests would be served by our closing the petition. At best, there has been very loose administration of the process—a process that would inform the position of this committee and the Scottish Government with regard to an inquiry, on the back of nine serious criminal accusations.
Let us go back to my laddie who is charged with breach of the peace. In as high profile a case as this one, if we cannot be seen to be ensuring that the authorities act appropriately and, at the very least, with basic courtesy, by getting back to people, what does that say for the prospects of other people, particularly against the background of the potential removal of the requirement for corroboration?
If I may, let us move on. I do not want to have a discussion about closing the petition, because, with the exception of one person, committee members have not said that they want to close it. The petition is still open. We have agreed to write to the SCCRC and Police Scotland’s chief constable. Can we stop at that, or are there other issues? Those are the two factual things that we are going to find out.
I agree with Margaret Mitchell that once we have received answers from the two bodies—
That will be a discussion for another time.
We will then discuss whether to close the petition.
I am basically happy with that. I am not speaking for the Government, but I think that its position is that if there is the possibility of any kind of criminal appeal proceeding it would be inappropriate for an inquiry to take place.
Of course it would; we know that. We have decided to find out two factual things and to keep further discussion for another day. We do not need a discussion about the whole thing now.
We move into private session for agenda item 5.
12:16 Meeting continued in private until 12:41.