Contents
Petitions
Justice for Megrahi (PE1370)
The next item on our agenda is consideration of three public petitions. I welcome Christine Grahame, who is here to speak to petition PE1370. We will have comments from committee members, then I will bring in Christine Grahame, and we can take it from there.
I refer members to paper 3, which is a note by the clerk. The committee is asked to consider and agree what action, if any, it wishes to take in relation to each petition. Possible outcomes are outlined in paragraph 5 of paper 3. If a member wishes to keep a petition open, they should indicate how they would like the committee to take the matter forward, and if they want to close a petition, they should give reasons why we should do so.
We will consider the petitions in order, starting with PE1370, which calls for an independent inquiry into the Megrahi conviction. The petition is discussed on the second page of the clerk’s paper. We have received a submission from the petitioners, which was circulated to members and published on the committee’s web page on Monday.
Before we commence our formal consideration of the petition, I must convey the sad news that one of the petitioners, Robert Forrester, died last week. I am sure that the committee would wish me to express our condolences to the family.
I invite comments on the petition from members.
Convener, you will be familiar with how we explain what is happening with petitions on the Scottish Parliament website. It shows that PE1370 was lodged on 1 November 2010 and, at that time, the Scottish Parliament information centre produced an accompanying briefing. Thereafter, there is a lengthy list of interventions, some of which took place recently, including in April—there is a note about consideration of the appointment of an independent prosecutor. The committee has written to the Lord Advocate seeking clarification of the status of independent counsel working with Police Scotland, and we have spoken about operation Sandwood and sought updates on that.
I am keen that we keep the petition open. To me, it is not about personalities; it is entirely about the process and this committee explaining itself. None of us is beyond explanation—I include in that some of the people mentioned in the petition and most certainly the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
We know that the whole affair has many unique features. It saw a trial on a Dutch airbase. The justice system’s initial response to the serious accusations made by the Justice for Megrahi committee was woeful, but they have since been picked up and taken seriously. I understand that the justice system now enjoys the confidence of the Justice for Megrahi committee. However, that is four years into the process.
An independent Queen’s counsel was appointed to support the police in relation to the matter, but then what? Ultimately, the report has to go to the Crown Office. On previous occasions, I have spoken about the process whereby a citizen who is concerned about the conduct of the prosecuting authorities can have confidence that they understand the system. It may be me—I stand to be corrected by any of the members round the table—but I certainly do not believe that we have yet reached the point of understanding that process. The present arrangements are going along, but what preceded them was clearly not robust enough, or we would not be where we are.
I would like us to be in a position to produce a more detailed response at some point in the future in order to explain ourselves. A first step towards that would be to ask for an update of the SPICe briefing. I understand that it is a standard procedure. SPICe would produce a short briefing on the proposal. We have moved beyond the proposal, but we cannot ignore the vehicle that has taken us to where we are. We have had the interests in the different factors concerning the avenues that we have to address.
I am keen that we keep the petition open and ask for an update to the briefing to incorporate all the information. That, in turn, will be posted on the Parliament website and will provide further explanation to citizens who maintain a keen interest in the matter.
It might be helpful if I read the petition to ensure that we are clear about what we are considering today. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament
“to urge the Scottish Government to open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988.”
The committee will appreciate that I have been here for only two years, so I am not quite sure how these things happen, but I am looking at a 2010 petition that was lodged on a very narrow remit. Convener, you have just read out what the petition calls on us, or on the Scottish Parliament, to do. I listened to John Finnie, and I do not necessarily disagree with anything that he said, but I think he would admit that we have moved beyond the narrow scope of the petition, which was lodged seven or eight years ago. It is almost like mission creep, and the submissions that we looked at before today’s meeting seemed to be going off on other tangents.
If the narrow question that is being asked is what we should do with the petition, my immediate response, having listened to John Finnie and to the convener’s summary, is that the petition has been superseded. I fairly quickly get to a point where I have to say that the best course of action is actually not to keep it open, but to close it down. Perhaps the petitioners would want to look at something different going forward, but as to the narrow question of whether the petition is the right one and whether we should take it forward, I think that, on balance, I would say no.
I support John Finnie’s stance on the petition. It may be a narrow question, but it is an enormously wide issue and it encompasses so much that a briefing now to say where we are and pull everything together would be a way forward that would allow us to make a decision on which way to go. Liam Kerr is right to say that things have moved and that, in some sense, the petition has been overtaken by events, but we need something to say where we are now, because a lot of us are new members of the committee. That would be helpful, so I support John Finnie’s proposal.
Likewise, I absolutely support keeping the petition open. We need to obtain the briefing, as John Finnie has suggested, in order to apprise ourselves of the scenario as things stand, and consideration must also be given to operation Sandwood and to what steps the committee might want to take thereafter. As things stand, I am absolutely for keeping the petition open.
I refer members to the submission that we have received from the petitioners. They state:
“It is our sincere belief that such a political intervention is long overdue. It is not good enough for the committee to decide to defer these matters until Crown Office has considered the Operation Sandwood report or the SCCRC has made a decision re the Megrahi family submission for a further appeal”,
whether that happens or not. The petitioners are telling us that to defer the petition for Sandwood, as Ben Macpherson suggests, is not the way forward. That is one of the reasons, but he also wants the SPICe briefing that John Finnie has called for. Is that correct?
I said that consideration should be given to Sandwood, but I support John Finnie’s proposition to obtain a briefing. I also point out that my reading of the submission is that the petitioners are not asking for the petition to be closed.
I want to be clear about exactly what you want the SPICe briefing to include, given that the previous cabinet secretary’s response was:
“Any conclusions reached by an inquiry would not have any effect on either upholding or overturning the conviction as it is appropriately a court of law that has this power.”
What are we seeking to achieve here?
I go back to my earlier point about the obligations on the committee. Ultimately, I think that our decision on what to do with the petition should be informed by all the information that we have. As has been said, we have some new members on the committee. There is an extensive list, and I highlighted just some of the items on it.
There is also a wider position, and I have to explain to the people that I am answerable to what happens in these circumstances and how we deal with the serious allegations that have been made, which relate to issues such as perjury and corrupt practices on the part of the Crown. Everything about the particular case is exceptional, but are we going to have a new policy? If a decision was taken to bin the petition, those issues would not go away. My obligation would still be to try to explain to people, and this is the committee where we would do it. This is the Justice Committee, which must have interests in the prosecution of crime and the citizen’s right of redress when they feel that something has gone wrong.
Is the operation Sandwood report impinging on what you are now asking the committee to look at?
No. I think that the update would include the circumstances in which it started off and was set up. As you know, there was obstruction under the previous system. It was only Police Scotland that pulled the thing together, and it got its leadership at that point. That is a factor. We need to understand what would happen in such circumstances now. There is also the role that the prosecution played in that.
Throughout all my interventions, I have purposely never talked about personalities or many of the issues that we have in front of us, which the public can read about on the website. To me, it is not about personalities. We all have to answer for ourselves, from senior politicians to this committee. It is about understanding the process.
I broadly agree with the comments that have been made by John Finnie, Ben Macpherson and Rona Mackay, but I acknowledge what Liam Kerr said. I note that the petition is of long standing, and throughout its course associated issues have been looked at, but I think that that lends weight to John Finnie’s proposal. For those reasons, if we are considering what happens next, we need to look at the matter well and truly in the round, so a SPICe briefing that looks at where we are now and pulls the issues together would be useful. Also, critically, it needs to set out precisely what our options are, and the implications for parliamentary process. That is key as well.
In making a decision, I want to understand the interactions between whatever steps we take and other on-going processes. I understand that the petitioners would like us to take steps and not wait for the other processes to conclude, but I want to understand what the potential consequences and interactions might be before we make any particular decision.
I think that a blend of what John Finnie said and what Daniel Johnson has just added would capture my view. The petition has been before the committee a number of times in the current session, and on each occasion we have agreed to defer it pending the outcome of operation Sandwood. It would be strange were we to deviate from that at this stage, but I agree with Daniel Johnson that it would be helpful to have some clarity about the interaction between what we are doing and other processes.
It would also be helpful to clarify the position in relation to operation Sandwood and what information will be made available to the committee. It is all very well to be seen to be kicking the can down the road if there is some prospect of information being shared with us in due course. However, if that is not the case, that is a concern for the committee, and it is something that we should be pursuing.
I support John Finnie in what he has asked for. He makes the valid point that there has been quite a turnaround in the committee—I am a perfect example of that. Mr Finnie has been here since 2010 and before that as well, so he has sat through the whole process. I think that I need that information before I go any further.
I also take on board John Finnie’s point that things have moved on but that the petition has been the vehicle of travel. It has been the thing that has kept pushing the issue forward. We need to get the information. I would like to keep the petition open so that we can make a more informed decision further down the line.
Do any other members wish to comment?
I do not have a lot to add to what George Adam and others have said. I would be content to leave the petition open and get a SPICe briefing. Since I have been on the committee, the petition has come up regularly and I know that the petitioners dutifully come in every time to hear what is being said. It is obviously a matter that is of great importance to people. I would feel more comfortable keeping it on the agenda and getting more information.
11:45
Are there any other comments from members?
I agree with that and I understand where John Finnie is coming from. I, too, am a relatively new member of the committee, although I have been in touch with the issue slightly, having been a member of the Public Petitions Committee. I would be more comfortable if we could keep the petition open and ask for an updated SPICe briefing.
I thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the discussion. I declare an interest as a longstanding member of the Justice for Megrahi campaign, although I must also make it plain that I speak for myself.
I am pleased to hear what members have said about an update from SPICe. I looked at the website and it appeared that the briefing was last updated in 2012—although I may have that wrong.
I say to Liam Kerr that, although I agree that time has moved on since the petition was lodged, that is the case for many petitions. There is a certain elasticity in petitions lodged by the public—they are not court pleadings in which people must be held responsible for such things.
I have a few points to make, particularly for new members and younger members. Come December, it will be 30 years since the Lockerbie atrocity, and as the years pass, the security of the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi has frayed at the edges. I am looking at some members of the committee and I would go so far as to say that some of them would have been children or teenagers when the atrocity occurred, although I recall it clearly.
This might be like a SPICe update. Megrahi abandoned his second appeal to secure compassionate release. Abandoning the appeal was not a prerequisite for that, although prison transfer was, but it was a belt-and-braces approach because Megrahi wanted to go home. The grounds of the second appeal to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission have never been tested in court. The SCCRC currently has a third application by Megrahi’s family. I wrote to the commission in September 2017 to ask it not to consider the third application until operation Sandwood had reached a conclusion. The report on that operation has been lodged.
I am happy to provide the committee with a copy of the reply to that letter, which I will quote so as not to distort what the commission’s chief executive said. The reply refers to operation Sandwood and says:
“It is certainly conceivable that the Board may consider that it requires a copy of the report prior to making any decision on referral, but there are too many imponderable factors at this stage to assess the probability of that outcome.”
There have been delays in operation Sandwood—the police inquiry into possible criminality in the case. I remind the committee that the operation was launched in February 2014, which is four years ago, and in March 2016, the Justice Committee was told by Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone that the operation was “in its final stage”. Yesterday, I was advised by the committee clerks that one year on, Police Scotland, by telephone, yet again stated that operation Sandwood was in its final stage.
The Justice for Megrahi campaign and I appreciate that there are complexities in the inquiry, which may have caused the delay. However, I suggest that the committee should formally ask Police Scotland to provide some detail on the number of officer hours that have been spent on operation Sandwood since the committee was told in March 2016 that it was in its final stage and also to provide an end date.
I put on record that I am not making a criticism of Police Scotland, given that officer man hours will have to be taken from somewhere else in order to deal with operation Sandwood. However, the committee can apply pressure in order to get that information in a way that others cannot.
I also ask the committee to consider writing to the SCCRC to ask whether it has proceeded to stage 2 of its consideration process and if not, why not. In particular, I suggest that the committee ask whether the conclusion and report of operation Sandwood, which must also be referred thereafter to the Crown Office, is delaying matters.
I appreciate—as do many others—that the Justice Committee has kept the petition open and can keep the pressure up in respect of what is now a decades-old matter. Victims’ families and others, including Robert Forrester, are dying without knowing the truth about Lockerbie, whatever that may turn out to be. I understand that the committee is not a court of appeal, but it is able to bring pressure to bear on agencies to ensure that, one way or another—perhaps there is a referral from the SCCRC and it goes to appeal—we can at last draw a line under that atrocity, 30 years on.
My plea to the committee is that you more than continue the petition. I ask you to put your foot down on the accelerator and say to the agencies that, given that the committee has been told more than once that operation Sandwood is in its final stages and that that appears be a blockage to further referral to the SCCRC, you need to have more information so that the matter can be brought to a conclusion.
There is without doubt a real frustration at the length of time that operation Sandwood has taken. If the committee is agreed, we will write and seek further information. Christine Grahame has also requested that we approach the SCCRC and see whether it is now at stage 2, which we are happy to do. Is it the committee’s agreed position that we should get a briefing from SPICe, which will take in all the things that Christine Grahame has said and all the points that we have mentioned around the table today, and that we should keep the petition open and determine how to move forward once we have considered the SPICe briefing?
Members indicated agreement.
Do you want the copies of my letters to the SCCRC and the responses?
That would be helpful. Thank you.
I am grateful to the committee.
Inverness Fire Service Control Room (PE1511)
The next petition is PE1511, on the Inverness fire service control room. The petition is discussed on page 3 of the clerk’s paper. Do members have any views?
Given how often we have returned to the petition, it would be helpful to clarify the detail of the response to the freedom of information request that seems to be the focus of the latest correspondence from the petitioner. What has changed since the last time we considered it is that we have agreed to undertake post-legislative scrutiny of some of the issues surrounding the petition, as part of our work programme, and it may well be that we are able to capture some of that in our on-going work. I would certainly find it helpful to get further information, probably from the clerks rather than anybody else, about what has been provided under FOI, as that seems to be the principal focus of the latest correspondence.
I have a lot of sympathy with what Liam McArthur has said. It seems to me that a lot of what the petitioner wants us to do is about to be picked up anyway, and a lot of the issues that the petitioner seems to want reviewed and addressed are historical. We are where we are, and the review that Liam McArthur is talking about will pick up on those issues, so I question the value of keeping the petition open.
I agree with Liam McArthur and Liam Kerr.
It seems that we have gone as far as we can, and that the fire service has no further answers. If there are FOI issues to be considered, perhaps a complaint could be made to the Scottish Information Commissioner. On that basis, I suggest that we close the petition, although we should note that there may be issues raised in it, such as general principles relating to control rooms, that may be covered in work undertaken under our future work programme.
It is appropriate that post-legislative scrutiny provides an opportunity to look at aspects of the petition. I just wonder whether that would be shared with the petitioner.
We can make a point of doing that.
Thank you.
Are members content to move forward on that basis?
Members indicated agreement.
Private Criminal Prosecutions (PE1633)
The final petition is PE1633, on private criminal prosecutions in Scotland, which is discussed on page 3 of the clerk’s paper. There were a lot of submissions for this. Do members have any comments?
I should probably declare an interest, as the petitioner is constituent of mine. As you say, convener, we have received a lot of submissions, which made for very interesting reading. It is a big issue and a serious and important one. I suggest that we should ask the Scottish Government for its opinion. I do not think that that has been asked for yet. I would also like to invite the petitioner and some of the people who responded to come and give oral evidence.
Rona Mackay makes a good point. One major concern for me was that one of the submissions seemed to suggest that the proposal would be outside legislative competence, and I want to understand whether that is the case.
Is it the committee’s view, then, that we should keep the petition open and seek legal advice on that point, and that in the meantime we should send the submissions to the Scottish Government to get a response? After that, we can see more clearly where to go. Are we agreed that we should keep it open pending those actions?
Members indicated agreement.
That concludes the public part of the meeting. Our next meeting will be after the Easter recess.
11:56 Meeting continued in private until 12:43.Previous
Remand