Chhokar Inquiries (Jandoo Report)
Item 4 follows on from the previous meeting of the Equal Opportunities Committee. We will consider the evidence that we heard on 16 December from the law officers and the Chhokar family and its representative about the murder of Surjit Singh Chhokar. On the strength of that evidence, we must decide how the committee wants to proceed and what recommendations, if any, it wants to make to the Scottish Executive.
I, along with other members, asked the Lord Advocate and the minister about whether the family still sought a public inquiry and whether they thought that that would be useful. I thought that the family was clear in its wish for a public inquiry to be held. The position of the minister and the Lord Advocate in opposing such an inquiry was not convincing. In fact, it reinforced my conviction that a public inquiry would be helpful. The idea that public inquiries are not helpful and cause people not to tell the truth is contradicted by reality. It would be helpful for the committee to say that it supports the family in its call for a public inquiry to be held.
The Lord Advocate's response when asked whether he endorsed the Jandoo report entirely, despite some of the poor comments that are made in it about Aamer Anwar and the advice that he gave, was very regrettable. I do not know what we can do about that, but I think that the Lord Advocate should have been much more measured in his response. He gave far too much weight to the Jandoo report by saying that he endorsed it completely, even when the convener read out the section to which I have referred. Although it was obvious that that section was uncomfortable, the Lord Advocate endorsed the report.
That is a smaller issue. The bigger issue is that the committee should lend its weight to the family's call for a public inquiry to be held. We should ask the Executive to reconsider its position and to endorse a public inquiry.
I agree with Tommy Sheridan—up to a very strong point. Before hearing evidence from the family about whether a public inquiry should have been held, I had an open mind on the issue. I am not au fait with the merits and demerits of that type of investigation. Having heard the family's evidence, I believe that this situation would have benefited from a public inquiry having been held.
However, we need to consider what the committee can do constructively, given that we also heard the law officers and the Minister for Justice indicate that they oppose such an inquiry. We must accept that the Jandoo report has been issued and has covered some aspects of the situation. From the evidence that we received, it appears that it did not cover everything that should have been covered. However, in the wake of the Jandoo report there has been movement from the Executive. The Executive has made changes to the Procurator Fiscal Service and to the way in which the Crown Office operates in situations of this type.
It is not enough to say that there should have been a public inquiry. We must be realistic and accept that the situation has moved on and that that was then and this is now. It is not impossible to endorse the calls for a public inquiry, but we must accept that there has not been a public inquiry and that, at present, a public inquiry is not likely. We still have a job to do in holding the Executive to account in delivering what it said it would do in the wake of the Jandoo report.
I agree with much of what Tommy Sheridan and Michael McMahon said. I am pleased that the Chhokar family justice campaign's submission has been put on the record. As Michael mentioned, we took evidence from the law officers and the Chhokar family, but we did not take evidence from Dr Jandoo. I simply want to raise that point—perhaps other members will comment on it further.
Much has been achieved on where we go from here and how the committee and the Parliament can monitor the progress. However, the final paragraph of the Chhokar family justice campaign's submission states:
"These Inquiries were supposed to identify what really happened, yet failed to do so. Without a full public inquiry the truth will never be heard and a second class system of justice will continue for black people and the poor. Surjit Singh Chhokar's death must leave a legacy, a criminal justice system free from racism if his death is not to be in vain."
That shows the family's feeling about a public inquiry—they still want one. I suggest that the committee should ask for a public inquiry. Clearly we cannot demand a public inquiry, but we can officially ask for one. Also, as Michael McMahon suggested, we should continue to monitor the situation.
Much of what I intended to say has been said. I was struck by the evidence at the previous meeting and I am amazed that a public inquiry has not been carried out. I was not convinced by the law officers' reasons why a public inquiry is not a good idea. There are good examples of public inquiries that have made significant and necessary changes.
I am not sure where we go from here. It seems to me that we want to put back the clock and change how things were done. We are in the frustrating position of having to decide whether to call for a public inquiry—although, as has been said, we will not get one—or whether simply to mark that there should have been a public inquiry and monitor the outcome of the various reports, even though some of the measures that I want to be put in place were not included in those reports. The reports are fairly weak in challenging institutional racism in our legal system.
Until now, the committee has gained a lot of credibility as a result of its actions. We have sought tenaciously to hear evidence from the family and to accommodate the family and the illnesses from which they suffer. I am awfully worried that we will fall at the final hurdle. I want the committee to say that it would have supported a public inquiry and to recommend that the Executive should reconsider the matter.
The time scale has been raised. Many public inquiries are held a long time after the incident. The bloody Sunday inquiry is not the only example, but that inquiry started 32 years after the event, which shows that people still think that when there is a tragedy, a public inquiry can be useful.
Let us be honest: if the family had said when they gave evidence to us that they were ambivalent or that they felt that a public inquiry would be painful because they wanted to try to move on, we would have had to accept that, regardless of any of our individual positions, but the family did not say that. The family clearly hopes that the committee will recommend to the Executive that it reconsider the position. That is what we should do.
I hope that I did not in any way create the impression that I did not think that there should have been a public inquiry. I said at the outset, having heard what the family said, that there should have been a public inquiry. We heard what the family said, but we also heard the Executive say clearly that it does not think that there should be—and there will not be—a public inquiry. I disagree with the Executive—there should have been a public inquiry—but we are dealing with the reality of the situation.
The committee can say that we believe that there should have been a public inquiry, but we accept that there has not been one, here is where we are now, and this is what we want to happen in the light of the Jandoo report. Implicit in that is the fact that we think that the Jandoo report did not cover everything that was required. To leave our position at a call to support the family's call for a public inquiry is not good enough. We have to say that there should have been a public inquiry and that we want to see what the Executive is doing to implement change in the wake of what transpired. The points that I wish to make concern where we were and where we are—we have to accept both.
I do not see why we cannot reach a solution without having a vote, because there are not miles between people's positions. For the record, if the first meeting that we arranged to take evidence from the law officers had gone ahead—it was prior to the inquiries; we had wanted to take evidence on their remits—we could have recommended a public inquiry before any of the inquiries had started. It is unfortunate that that evidence session did not go ahead, for various reasons.
Everybody here is agreed that the committee probably would have supported a public inquiry at that time. To a certain extent, if the committee agrees to support a public inquiry, it will be because we feel that there should have been one in the first place, and also because we have a lot of sympathy for the family, particularly following the evidence that they gave at our last meeting.
As convener, I have no difficulty with indicating to the Executive that we would have supported a public inquiry, asking the Executive to reconsider having a public inquiry, and asking it to lay down clearly for the committee the criteria for establishing a public inquiry. The committee would want to be involved in the remit of such an inquiry and in determining what it would be hoped to gain from it. We would also want to make it clear that we do not want the good work that is going ahead to stop while we wait for discussion to take place or for a public inquiry to be formed. We would want to make it clear that however much we disagree with some of the comments in the Jandoo report and are unhappy about the remit of the report and the way in which the inquiry was conducted, some good initiatives have come out of it and a lot of work is now being done to address some of the problems that the Chhokar family faced.
I must say that I am not optimistic that we would receive support for a public inquiry, but we can say that if we had been able to go ahead with the evidence session with the law officers, we would have supported the family publicly and state the committee's case. I do not know how members feel about that. Is everybody happy with that?
I hope that you do not think that I have little right to comment, given that I was not at the last meeting. Please do not think that I did not try to get to it.
You make the valid point that timing is everything. I was not on the committee at the time, but if the opportunity had arisen to take evidence, things might well have been different. Michael McMahon's point is valid: the crucial thing is not where we were then, but where we are now. The fact that things have moved on considerably from what was happening is valid. I do not want the good work to be cast aside.
I could ask for a full description of progress on that work in the letter.
You suggested that we should agree a statement on everything that we have said. I endorse that 100 per cent. It brings the committee together, allowing us to publicly support the family while recognising that we do not want things to stand still while there is deliberation. It would signal to the family that we are fighting on its behalf. Whether it is rejected or not, the letter is a dead important symbol.
In a separate letter, you could also ask about the progress of the inquiry into the leaking of the Jandoo inquiry report. That was a very damaging political leak. I thought that Jim Wallace's and the Lord Advocate's replies to my questions and the questions of others were woefully inadequate.
That can all go into the same letter. The letter will detail the committee's response to the evidence that it took at its last meeting. The leak was discussed as part of that evidence.
If you remember, we were promised that we would get a copy of the report.
Are we agreed about the letter?
Members indicated agreement.
The final item on the agenda is the committee's work programme. We will now move into private session.
Meeting continued in private until 12:15.