Justice, divided?

A niche interest, perhaps, but let's talk about Holyrood's Justice Committee. Christine Grahame's committee often pops up on the pages of this blog, sometimes favourably, and sometimes taking a bit of a shellacking.  

Today, Holyrood's sexy Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee reported, making recommendations about how the Scottish Parliament should organise its committee work in future, scrutinising Bills, exploring how new legislation is actually working in practice, and setting their own investigative agenda. But don't be dazzled by the dreary name. This is important stuff. The Committee is lukewarm on the idea of Holyrood directly electing committee convenors, and recommends that in future, committees should be limited to seven MSPs in total. But on the justice brief, the group has this concrete suggestion.

Justice committee 

23. The one exception is the Justice Committee which, in every session of the Parliament to date, has been more consistently burdened with legislation than any other committee. In session 2 there was an experiment with two Justice Committees sharing the same remit. We do not suggest repeating this approach, which only led to confusion. However we note that, in this session, the Justice Sub-Committee on Policing has worked effectively to pick up major issues which the main committee did not have time to cover. 

24. We do not recommend sub-committees as a long term solution. We think that they raise issues of accountability to the main committee which are difficult to manage. We think the Parliament could consider for next session establishing two justice committees but this time with distinct remits – analogous to the split in the House of Commons between Home Affairs and Justice. 

25. We recognise that there are downsides to this option. We point out that the alternatives are also unsatisfactory: they are for the Scottish Government to bring forward less legislation in this area; or for the Parliament to accept that the Justice Committee exists mainly to scrutinise bills and will never have much time to initiate its own inquiries – a clearly undesirable scrutiny gap. 

We recommend that the Parliament should consider establishing two justice committees next session with different remits. If this option is trialled, we recommend that our successor committee reviews it after the first two years of the session. 

Intuitively, this seems like a sound conclusion. Grahame's committee has been rammed with work this session. Ministers are always in favour of criminalising something new, or sticking a new name on an old infraction. NGOs nibble away at MSPs incessantly. And you are never in want of a backbencher or two, with a nut they believe only a sledgehammer can crack. The accelerating pace of criminalisation has proved unremitting. Justice is snowed under - and save for the odd flash of steel - have had next to no time to cast a critical eye backward over the laws Holyrood has passed, or forward, pursuing its own agenda distinct from the Scottish Government's legislative programme. This is not desirable.

But how to distinguish the two committees proposed? Today's report is hazy, and the Westminster parallel prayed in aid isn't particularly helpful here. Keith Vaz's select committee traipses after Theresa May's Home Office, while the Commons Justice Committee chases Michael Gove. There are obvious policy overlaps between these two UK departments' activities, but from a quick look at their current agenda, the home affairs brief focusses almost entirely on reserved matters which remain outwith Holyrood's ken: drugs, immigration, terrorism. 

Between 2001 and 2007, MSPs formed two justice committees, with identical remits, without demarcating any special areas of focus, one from the other. This was daft, providing no opportunity to build up expertise across the policy brief, and no compensating rational divisions of the committees' functions. Reprising this approach in the next session would be a mistake. But if they see the wisdom in today's recommendation, how should MSPs proceed in the next session?

Perhaps the most obvious, wisest and most coherent way of distinguishing between the two committees would be to give one a criminal justice lead, and to proccupy the other with civil themes. Police, prisons, prosecutors and the criminal law on one hand, legal aid, human rights, tenants' rights, and defamation reform on the other. At times this session, a preoccupation with the former has felt like it has crowded out that latter. I grant you, you can't - shouldn't - look at either criminal or civil justice in isolation. Some topics cut across both branches of law, and its professionals and institutions. But a flexible but clear division of functions could only help setting the committees' hopefully more autonomous investigative agenda. Good call.

Justice Committee #Fail

My gast is flabbered. This afternoon, Holyrood's Justice Committee has reported on the late Margo MacDonald's draft assisted suicide legislation. Since Margo's death, the Bill is being shepherded through the Scottish Parliament by Patrick Harvie. The Committee's report, reasonably enough, was intended to focus on the legal aspects of the proposal. Central to that enterprise, you might well think, would be to ascertain with some precision what is and is not currently illegal when it comes to assisting and facilitating acts of suicide in this country. 

The English position is easily stated. The Suicide Act applies, which criminalises "aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring" the suicide of another person. If you prepare a lethal cocktail of drugs for your spouse in England, or help a friend to fly to the Dignitas clinic in Swizterland, you violate the law. But what of Scotland? Would I be at risk of prosecution if I prepared a fatal dose of drugs for a sick friend to administer to themselves? Might I face a homicide conviction, for ordering tickets for a terminally ill relative, accompanying them to a Swiss canton? 

The Justice Committee, on the evidence of their own report, haven't really got the foggiest. But chin up. They don't seem particularly to care either. After all, it is only a fundamental question of human liberty. You'd want to leave that, as ambiguously defined as possible, for prosecutors to determine according to uncertain and inaccessible standards. Here's their amateur-hour summary of the current legal position in Scotland.

27. Suicide and attempted suicide are not in themselves illegal in Scotland. The decision on whether or not to prosecute is for the COPFS, taking into account the circumstances of the case, including whether prosecution would be in the public interest.

You'd think you wouldn't leap to questions of prosecution before you've actually established that the impugned behaviour is a criminal offence. Some forms of assistance may well amount to homicide -- but others, such as the examples given, fall well short of the common law offences of murder and culpable homicide. The Crown Office isn't a lawmaking body. Your apparent deference to prosecutorial judgement here is ridiculous, lazy and misplaced. You can't just ask Frank Mulholland what he thinks about it and wait for the Lord Advocate experimentally to indict some luckless assister under the common law. This isn't 1760. This is your responsibility.

But I digress. The report continues...

27. "The Policy Memorandum explains that “it is possible that a person who assists someone else to commit suicide would be prosecuted for homicide (i.e. murder or culpable homicide), or for some lesser offence (such as assault or culpable and reckless injury/behaviour), although the lack of relevant case-law makes it difficult to establish how likely this is to happen in any particular case”.

28. In England and Wales, assisting a suicide is a statutory offence under section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961. Decisions on prosecution are taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The law relating to the DPP’s role has been clarified by two high-profile cases. In the first, the case of Diane Pretty, the House of Lords upheld the DPP’s refusal to give an undertaking in advance not to prosecute Ms Pretty’s husband if he assisted her in ending her own life. In the second, the case of Debbie Purdy, the House of Lords ruled that the DPP’s refusal to issue guidance on whether Mr Purdy’s husband would face prosecution for helping her to travel to Switzerland to die, contravened the ECHR. Following this judgment, the DPP issued guidelines aimed at clarifying the approach to cases of encouraging or assisting a suicide. These guidelines do not have the force of law and have no direct bearing on cases in Scotland.

Brilliant. So the Justice Committee's summary of the Scottish legal position amounts to a big shrug about the complexity of the common law, cannot offer any clear guidance on what kinds of assisting behaviour may or may not be criminal under the law as it stands, and focuses almost entirely on explicitly irrelevant English material.

Fan-bloody-tastic.

Christine Grahame may talk a good game, and make occasional noises about robust and independent-minded scrutiny of policy - but under her chairmanship, this committee has often as not produced a singularly undistinguished and unfocussed analysis of the justice issues placed before it. Today's facile report kicks off 2015, dismally on trend.

Musical Chairs

Tricia Marwick is a lady with a plan. 

The Scottish Parliament's presiding officer knows the institution like the back of her hand. And all is not, in her view, as it should be. In the New Year, she will put proposals to MSPs, providing that the chairs of Holyrood's committees should not be promoted and executed according to the whims of party whips, but should instead be selected (a) to reflect the parties' balance of representation in the chamber and (b) elected by secret ballot of the whole chamber.  

The idea is to give committee chairs an independent dignity in their roles. Rather than being the preserve of party placemen and women, reliant on the favour and whim of party leaders, the hope is that direct election will stiffen MSPs' sinews, encouraging a more critical, less cravenly partisan approach to the deliberation and work of Holyrood's committees. Or as Marwick told the Herald this week:

"I believe the responsibility of conveners of the parliament should be first and foremost to the parliament. How do you enshrine that? The only way to do that is to get the whole ­parliament to elect the conveners so they derive their authority and mandate from the parliament itself and not through the parties. The very act of being elected by the whole parliament gives a message to the conveners and everybody else that the conveners are there primarily to act in the interests of the parliament and not their own ­political party."

Marwick takes her inspiration from 2010 reforms introduced at Westminster, which saw MPs casting ballots for their preferred select committee chairs, with the seat allocated according to the Additional Vote system (ironically, you might well think).  The division of booty is secured by allocating chairs to particular parties, and only permitting candidates from that party to stand.  In 2010, this meant that Liberal Democrats were in contention for two chairs, Labour nine, with the Tories snaffling the remaining twelve. Eight chairs were uncontested, the rest being determined by run-offs between two and six candidates (with competition fiercest for the Labour-controlled Public Accounts Committee. Ex-minister Margaret Hodge won out over Hugh Bayley in the fifth round by just six votes).  No North Korean style elections these: the outcomes can be close-run things.

Marwick's proposals seem sensible and modest, but a few obvious questions suggest themselves. One: isn't there a risk that these reforms will transform an explicitly leadership-controlled appointments process into one where parties can still work their will behind the scenes? Tricia has not yet published full details of her proposals, but in Westminster, would-be candidates must be nominated by 15 MPs or 10% of their parliamentary party, whichever figure is lower, nor can MPs nominate more than one candidate for the same chair.  

In a smaller, proportional chamber like Holyrood, there are far fewer votes going begging, and far fewer candidates, having stripped out ministers and their shadows from consideration. Never underestimate the power of a quiet word in the ear.  You know the sort of thing: "Please don't stand, John. For the good of the party." "Johann would really appreciate it if you gave Jackie a clear run at this one." "If you nominate that berk, Willie will take his mellon-baller to your kidneys."  

We might hope that our parliamentarians will put aside such calculations, and support the most able candidate for the role. But if Holyrood adopts strict threshold requirements for nominations, it seems likely that these informal mechanisms will allow party leaderships to continue to influence the choices put before parliament. Only the very naive would assume that politicians - a noteably scheming, climbing band of folk - could resist the temptation to meddle. 

Two: I wonder to what extent is the partisanship of Holyrood's committees is caused by the lack of independence of their chairs? And three: to what extent is that lack of independence really attributable to the process of their appointment? MSPs are generally, of their natures, partisan creatures. Unlike the serried, gossipy, idling ranks of Westminster MPs, the party caucuses in Holyrood are pretty cosy affairs. Propotionality also seems to encourage party discipline, in government and in opposition. 

Between 2007 and 2011, when the minority administration faced knife-edged votes, a stray vote here or there could prompt high drama. The SNP majority has shrunk back since 2011, no doubt focussing minds on the government benches on the unaffordable luxury of dissent. The independence referendum imposes its own overriding demands of unity. On the Labour side, ranks depleted to thirty-seven members of which fourteen serve in party leadership roles (38%), observing the line-to-take and abominating Salmond and all of his works remains a unremitting duty. There just aren't enough Greens or Liberal Democrats to form a decent internal schism.

Moreover, Holyrood still lacks any real discourse of the backbench parliamentarian, ploughing an independent-minded, dissenting  furrow. I can't think of the last time, in the justice brief, when the majority on the Justice Committee sounded any meaningfully critical note concerning a flagship government policy. While the idea briefly flared into a sort of life when the committee considered the Scottish Government's Football Bill, in the event, all five of the SNP's MSPs yielded up their votes, despite the fact that their investigations into the legislation had blown a series of holes in the government's case. It'll be interesting to see what Christine Grahame and her colleagues make of the corroboration debate.  Though some of the parliamentary scrutiny is woeful, it is not as if our MSPs don't have it in them.

But none of these are really reasons to be skeptical about Marwick's proposals. If anything, they all point to the importance of cultural factors. Structural changes may not be sufficient, in and of themselves, to transform the parliament's approach. But they can underscore and help foster important aspirations about how committees can and should conduct themselves - and start to challenge the excesses of unthinking partisan loyalty, whichever side of the chamber you sit on.  

What are Margo's chances?

I meant to discuss this at the time, but better late than never, I suppose. During September, the news quietly circulated that Margo Macdonald has again secured sufficient signatures from her fellow parliamentarians, to allow the issue of assisted dying to be revisited in Holyrood this session.

Her last attempt to reform the law was eviscerated by an ad hoc committee chaired by Ross Finnie, and the discussion of the Bill was halted at stage one, rejected on its general principles by the Scottish Parliament on an unwhipped vote of fifteen to eighty-five. Whether by conscious strategy, or down to the dismal dreich December weather, the vote was marked by a very large number of absences. Of voting members (i.e. excluding the Presiding Officer), some 20% of the parliament didn't express a view on the Bill's general principles, one way or the other.

No new draft bill has yet been lodged but her nineteen supporters are identified here. In 2009, Margo was able to secure twenty signatures, of whom thirteen MSPs remain in the parliament  - Patrick Harvie (Green), Elaine Murray (Lab), James Kelly (Lab), John Park (Lab), Sandra White (SNP), Christine Grahame (SNP), Jamie Hepburn (SNP), Bill Kidd (SNP), Angela Constance (SNP), Joe Fitzpatrick (SNP), Jackson Carlaw (Tory), Jim Hume (Lib) and Liam McArthur (Lib).  Today, she draws the majority of her support from SNP MSPs, including George Adam, Marco Biagi, Chic Brodie, Roderick Campbell, Jim Eadie, Christine Grahame, Jamie Hepburn, Bill Kidd, Richard Lyle, Mark McDonald, Fiona McLeod and Sandra White. Support elsewhere, from both Green MSPs, from Argyll Tory man Jamie McGrigor and Orkney Liberal Liam McArthur, and from three Labour MSPs: Kezia Dugdale, John Park and Mary Fee. Interestingly, eleven of Margo's nineteen supporters are members newly-elected in 2011.

Obviously, Margo's private member's Bill was rejected by a large margin in 2010. Are its chances of appearing in the law books better today? Prima facie, you might think not, but a look at the numbers suggests that the changes affected by the last Holyrood election present opportunities as well as challenges. Of the fifteen MSPs who - at the very least - wanted to continue discussing her proposals in 2010, six (40%) no longer sit in the parliament.  Margo has also lost one of her most vocal supporters in the Liberal Democrat Jeremy Purvis, defeated in the Borders by Christine Grahame in the 2011 election. But as you'll recall, 2011 was a poll with unexpected consequences, not least that many more familiar faces and old political hands were not returned, and a whole new cohort of Labour and Nationalist MSPs were elected, many of them rather younger than the traditional Labour and Nationalist tribalists who secure their party's nomination for office.  New faces, new opportunities.

What's more, Margo has indicated that this won't be an unaltered rerun of her abortive last attempt to amend the law of homicide.  The draft Bill she will introduce will apparently be an reframed, rejigged text, drawing on the criticisms which she proved unable to fend off in parliament's last session, although I imagine the "general principles" which she seeks to promote are more or less unaltered. It's also worth recalling that a number of those MSPs who supported her at stage one in 2010 made explicit in their speeches that they were in favour of continuing the parliamentary conversation, not necessarily endorsing the merits of her proposals. 

All that considered, opportunities and challenges both, from Margo's perspective the prospects for these new proposals looks bleak. The parliamentary arithmetic suggests the scale of the challenge before her.  By my reckoning, here's how the new chamber which will be reconsidering assisted-dying shapes up...

Margo's notoriously no faintheart, and I'm sure she will fight on with this policy, despite opposition.  But what are the chances that she'll prevail on this second try? Slim, I'd say. Very slim. 

Carloway "eviscerated"?

The Firm described it as an "eviscerating assessment". Understandably bedazzled by the Scottish constitutional developments of the last few days, most of you may have missed that Holyrood's Justice Committee came to some preliminary conclusions on the Carloway Review this week, set out in this letter to Kenny MacAskill from their convenor, Christine Grahame.  If it is an evisceration, the disembowelment is discreetly done, and to my eye, the letter reads more like a reflection of a range of reactions to a particularly controversial recommendation among generally uncontroversial recommendations, than a concerted disentangling of the Carloway Report's guts. Grahame notes that the Committee's brief investigation intended:

"...to obtain a “snapshot” view of interested parties’ initial reactions to Lord Carloway’s recommendations, rather than to conduct a full-blown inquiry. This letter is the outcome of that work".

Given immediate reaction to Carloway's proposals when they were published - focussing almost entirely on his controversial proposal to eliminate corroboration - it isn't wholly surprising that he Committee's "snapshot" reveals an array of leery legal phizogs, critical of Lord Carloway's blunt conclusion of November that...

26. The Review is, however, in no doubt that the requirement of corroboration should be entirely abolished for all categories of crime. It is an archaic rule that has no place in a modern legal system where judges and juries should be free to consider all relevant evidence and answer the single question of whether they are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused person committed the offence libelled. Abolition would bring Scots law into line with modern, and almost universal, thinking on how to approach evidence in criminal, and indeed all other, cases. There is little evidence to suggest that the requirement is in fact an effective protection against miscarriages of justice. Research commissioned by the Review suggests instead that the corroboration requirement may well hinder justice by preventing credible and reliable cases from being prosecuted. Furthermore, the requirement has developed into a series of rules which, realistically, are not capable of being understood by many outside the world of criminal legal practice and are inconsistently applied by many within it.

Committing 1,281 of the letter's 3,246 words to issues of corroboration, the letter reflects a critical assessment of Carloway's conclusion, both in terms of the substantial issues, and the research informing them. Arguments relayed include the idea that corroboration is an important "evidential quality control" and shield against miscarriages of justice, to concerns that Carloway's recommendation to abolish corroboration ignored wider context of Scottish criminal procedure. For example, not researched and not discussed in detail were questions of jury rules. In England, without corroboration, juries vote by qualified majority to convict and acquit, requiring ten of twelve jurors to decide the case. In Scotland, conviction is by bare majority of juries of fifteen - and if there is not a majority for conviction, the accused is simply acquitted. Not to consider these issues, and speedily to propose the elimination of corroboration, would be profoundly risky, promoting decision-making structures insufficiently protective of the rights of the defence, and of persons accused of committing crimes.

It is fair to say that the Justice Committee hasn't endorsed Carloway's blunt conclusion, and is clearly sympathetic to the idea, advanced by the Faculty of Advocates, that corroboration ought to be further examined, explored in the context of broader criminal procedure, potentially by a Royal Commission. Grahame writes:

"Lord Carloway is to be congratulated for having provoked a much-needed discussion on the purpose of corroboration. The question now is how best to continue that discussion, and in which forum."

That the discussion ought to continue is taken as axiomatic. For what it's worth, I think the Committee and the critical voices quoted are right in a range of important respects. While I'm sympathetic to the idea of eliminating corroboration, it is clearly a principle which structures the behaviour of a whole range of official legal actors - policemen, prosecutors, judges, appellate review of convictions - and interacts with jury voting rules and the power of judges to repel cases, refusing to put them to juries ("no case to answer").  Not to consider these aspects, and to accelerate into full repeal of corroboration without further analysis seems distinctly unwise. The Justice Committee emphasises the:

"... importance of ensuring that any future work on corroboration should avoid considering that single issue in isolation. Instead, it should also take into account the complex web of factors that, taken together, set the current balance between the state’s ability to secure a conviction and the individual’s right to a fair trial, and to be acquitted where there is a reasonable doubt. Witnesses suggested that this might include not only rules on the admissibility, quality and sufficiency of evidence, but also, for example, the not proven verdict or the availability of convictions by simple majority verdict. They also underlined the importance of studying other jurisdictions, building on the comparative work already undertaken by Lord Carloway. Some witnesses proposed taking the opportunity to “future-proof” our laws and practices to reduce the risk of future ECHR referrals. In short, these witnesses argued, all relevant matters should be on the table.

That said, one wonders if Carloway may be a bit miffed. The Review was pulled together pretty quickly after the Cadder judgment of the UK Supreme Court on the 26th October 2010.  Carloway's appointment was announced on the same day, while his agreed terms of reference were published on the 18th of November.  The two crucial sections of Carloway's remit were:

(b) To consider the implications of the recent decisions, in particular the requirement for legal advice prior to and during police questioning, and other developments in the operation of detention of suspects since it was introduced in Scotland in 1980 on the effective investigation and prosecution of crime.
(c) To consider the criminal law of evidence, insofar as there are implications arising from (b) above, in particular the requirement for corroboration and the suspect's right to silence (my emphasis).

Given the time-frame of his Review, and my understanding of the limited number of personnel committed to the enterprise, it was always going to be tricky for Carloway to address the corroboration question posed by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice in a comprehensive fashion. Indeed, his terms of reference specifically steered him towards thinking about corroboration in terms of the implications of Cadder, which I've blogged about before. Given these limitations, you get the impression that critics' major objection to the report has been to the categorical robustness of Carloway's conclusion on corroboration, which sits uneasily beside the limits of his research, suggesting that a more circumspect conclusion in this branch of his report was indicated. 

To describe it as an "evisceration" seems overspicy, but certainly, the Justice Committee have contributed to the forces vitiating against speedy legislation to "knock out this pillar of Scottish criminal procedure", as some have rather grandly put it. More generally, it seems to me that the Committee is simply doing its job: cataloguing reactions to concrete proposals, testing feelings, identifying areas where our knowledge is imperfect, and ought to be improved, before making a final decision to head north or south, to reform or retain the status quo. Why must every disagreement or difference of opinion be given a yah-boo slant when reported, slating x, y or z? Late last year, I wrote this blog about questionable claims being made about rape conviction rates under new Holyrood legislation. This was picked up by the folk of the Express and - heaven help me - the Daily Star, who awarded me a doctorate, and headlined their report "Boffin blasts SNP".

Surely if we are going to engage in collective deliberation, commission reports, solicit evidence and work up informed opinions - treat them as part of a conversation rather than chipped in unbreakable tablets - we have to be rather less Manichean in our outlook, where proposals must be triumphantly adopted in whole or end up being slated as abject failures if they prove predictably controversial in part.

Holyrood: less transparent than Westminster?

The Westminster parliament is hardly renowned for its transparency, even after late scandals.  However, a quarter-decade ago, the House of Commons established its Register Of Interests Of Members' Secretaries And Research Assistants. I first discovered it thanks to Twitter during the ignominy of the Liam-Fox/Adam-Werritty/taking-my-mate-to-the-UK's-bomb-party-and-getting-plastered affair. Maintained by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, nowadays, it requires that...

"Those holding a parliamentary pass as a Member's secretary or research assistant are required to record on this Register, commonly called the Members' Staff Register, any other occupation or employment from which they receive income exceeding half of one per cent of a Member's salary from the same source in the course of a calendar year, if that occupation or employment is in any way advantaged by the privileged access to Parliament afforded by their pass. They also have to register any tangible gift (eg silverware) and any other benefit (eg. hospitality, service or facilities provided) which they receive, if the value of the gift or benefit exceeds that sum and the gift arises from or relates to their work in Parliament."

You can search the list by member of parliament, and see who has lobbed a job to one of their councillors; whose staff also work part-time and ad hoc for pressure groups, charities, corporations or unions; how many buzz about part-time as party political Moscas; discern whose employees is paid for by CARE or the like, and any jaunts the staff have gone on, including trips to Tunisia, Egypt, Portugal, Germany, Rwanda, Azerbaijan, St Andrews - and so on. While in most cases, the Register only lists the names of those employed who have no other outside, declarable interests, more eccentric details are revealed in other entries.  For example, Tory MP for Devon South West, Gary Streeter, unaccountably employs the director of the Christian Socialist Movement, Andrew Flannagan. Attorney-General Dominic Grieve rejoices in the company of a "self-employed political coach". While hardly densely textured information, the register at least allows one to see who is employing who on the public penny, which strikes me as no bad thing.

What about Holyrood, I asked myself? Since the institution prides itself on drawing flattering contrasts with Westminter's traditional perfidy and insular sense of entitlement, ever keen to burnish its credentials for transparency and public accessibility, I assumed I'd be able to find the parallel roster of Holyrood's parliamentary staff whippity-quick. But no. Not a sausage.  In 2010/11, under the prevailing Members Expense Scheme, MSPs' staffing costs ran to some £8,841,339, with a "cap" of £59,500 on each member. In some cases, a tiny sprinkle of information is available.  For example, Darth Murdo Fraser declares the "gift" of a CARE intern in his interests. If you look into the individual expenses claims of MSPs, which are extensively catalogued online, sometimes the payee is listed, but not if members "pool" resources and share staff through the SNP support group, and the like.  After the 2009 ban on MSPs employing family members, Scottish parliamentarians who hire the relations of other MSPs are required to declare the association.  As of November this year, this micro-register of inter-tribune child support read as follows... 

MSP	Staff member	Related MSP	Relation	Job
Neil Bibby	Jacqueline Henry	Hugh Henry	Wife	Researcher
Christine Grahame	Euan Ingram	Adam Ingram	Son	Researcher
Bill Kidd	Christopher White	Sandra White	Son	Parliamentary assistant
Joan McAlpine	Gail Lythgoe	Humza Yousaf	Wife	Researcher
Siobhan McMahon	Laura Baillie	Jackie Baillie	Daughter	Administrator

Late-May's list showed that the practice was rather more widespread earlier on in the year.  For the main, however, there's no simple public ledger whatsoever of who our MSPs employ, nor any public declaration system, by means of which staff's external interests which might impact on their parliamentary work could be declared. One ought to be sanguine about the practical limits of these official catalogues of connections. Absolutely. They will never exhaustively map the often undisclosed and unofficial networks of potentially influential relationships our politicians have, nor should they.  However, it does strike me that this is a modest set of data which it would be worthwhile to make publicly available.

I dare say one could contact each of the MSPs individually, soliciting the names of their employees, but that's hardly straightforward, and hardly enshrines abstract ideas of transparency by adopting practical measures effectively to realise it. If Westminster feels that it is necessary and worthwhile to publish this information about MPs' staff, it seems clear to me that the burden lies on Holyrood and its Corporate Body, to explain why conditions obtaining in London require the disclosure of this information, while transparent Edinburgh ought to be exempted from the necessity.  Colour me unconvinced.

Anyone up for a mild spot of agitation come the new year?

"I am desperate for the truth of the matter to come out..."

A few days ago, I drew your attention to the fact that Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee have decided to sustain the parliament's examination for the Justice for Megrahi public petition, by forwarding it to their colleagues in Holyrood's Justice Committee. 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."

I have only now been able to get sight of the official report of the Petitions Committee meeting on the 28th of June, in the course of which they came to this decision. Their discussion was brief and consensually adopted. Many members are new faces from the Nationalist benches. While the trenchant and unstinting Aberdonian, Kevin Smith, couldn't remember whether or not he'd signed the petition himself - clearly has an eye for detail, wur Kevin - it was a fellow Nationalist member, Bill Walker (above, right), who most vehemently contended for the parliament's continued examination of the circumstances surrounding the calamity over Lockerbie and the character of the criminal investigation and proceedings which followed..

Justice for Megrahi (PE1370)

The Convener (David Stewart) (Labour): PE1370 is on justice for Megrahi. I refer members to the clerks' paper and invite comments from the committee.

Nanette Milne (Tory): I find this to be a difficult petition to deal with. There is an option to get an update from the Scottish Government on its plans for legislation regarding the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. Beyond that, however, I think that the committee has gone as far as it can with the petition. I know that I have been a bit reluctant to refer petitions to subject committees, but this is clearly one to refer to the Justice Committee.

Sandra White (SNP): It is an extremely important petition on a subject that people have various views on. It could be controversial, but I think that it is an honest petition that is seeking the truth. I was not a member of the previous session's committee, which deliberated on the petition. Would it be sufficient for the Public Petitions Committee to ask the Scottish Government to open an inquiry, or would it be better to send the petition to the Justice Committee with the recommendation that the Government pursue an inquiry? My problem is that I do not want it to get hidden in the Justice Committee stuff and not come back out again.

Kevin Stewart (SNP): I agree that the petition should go to the Justice Committee. As a new member of Parliament, I should probably declare an interest in that I may have signed the petition—I am not quite sure. If I did not, I probably did not see it, otherwise I would have signed it. It is a matter for the Justice Committee and we should allow that committee to have a clear look at it.

The Convener: I should have mentioned that Jim Swire and Robert Forrester are present. I thank them for the comprehensive work that they have done on the petition and for referring us to the interview with Gareth Peirce, "The Quiet Storm", which made fascinating reading.

Bill Walker (SNP): I am desperate for the truth of the matter to come out. It is fundamental that the truth come out, and we should do everything that we can to help it to come out. I agree with Kevin Stewart that the petition should go to the Justice Committee, although I was a bit concerned when Sandra White said that it might get buried in that committee's paperwork. The terrible events happened a long time ago so we must get to the truth sooner rather than later. Let us not let the Justice Committee bury it.

The Convener: I cannot make any predictions about other committees, but given Christine Grahame's interest in the matter, I would be extremely surprised if the petition did not have a high profile in the Justice Committee.

John Wilson (SNP): You said it, convener. The interest of the new convener of the Justice Committee in the matter will do the petition justice and ensure that the issues that have been raised are examined. The previous Public Petitions Committee tried to deal with the petition although it came to the committee late in the previous session. However, the responses that we have received and the further evidence that has been submitted by the petitioners indicate that the matter is for the Justice Committee to consider. The petition raises a number of concerns about who takes responsibility for what decisions in relation to the process of appeals within the Scottish criminal justice system, so I would be happy to see it passed on to the Justice Committee.

The Convener: If no member wishes to make any further comment, we will move on. It is agreed that we will refer the petition to the Justice Committee under rule 15.6.2?

Members indicated agreement.

Source.

Lockerbie Case in Holyrood II...

Delayed recognition, but I dare say that some of you might not have noticed interesting progress in Holyrood this week, on the Justice for Megrahi petition. I was waiting for the parliamentary authorities to upload the official report to get a read of what committee members actually said in the course of their deliberations - but it has not yet materialised. Ho hum. So I thought I'd crack on anyway, while the development is still remotely contemporary. By way of background, the petition was presented to the parliament's Public Petitions Committee in the last session by Dr Jim Swire, Robert Black QC and other and despite some technical hitches in the process, attracted some 1,646 signatures. 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."

After taking evidence from the petitioners, the Petitions Committee wrote to the Scottish Government, asking three discrete questions:

Will you 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 as called for by the petitioner and for the reasons given in the petition?

If not, will you provide a detailed explanation why not, specifying whether there is any legislation which would prevent you from holding such an inquiry, what this legislation is and how it prevents?

Who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition?

The government's answer to all three questions was basically - no. Ministers responded in the following terms towards the end of January this year:

The Cabinet Secretary for Justice made clear in his response of 16 September to a Parliamentary Question (S3W-35844) from George Foulkes on this issue that the Government have no plans to initiate an inquiry on this issue.

The Government does not doubt the safety of the conviction of Mr Al-Megrahi. He was tried and convicted by a Scottish court before three judges and his appeal against conviction, heard by a panel of five judges, was unsuccessful. A second appeal, following a referral from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, was abandoned by Mr Al-Megrahi. The conduct of his defence during his trial and the appeals, including his decision not to give evidence at trial and the decision to abandon the second appeal, was entirely a matter for Mr Al-Megrahi and his legal advisors.

The Government’s view is that the petition is inviting the Scottish Government to do something which falls properly to the criminal justice system i.e. inquire into whether a miscarriage of justice has taken place. The criminal justice system already provides a mechanism for that to happen. The fact that Mr Al-Megrahi chose to abandon his second appeal rather than pursue it is entirely a matter for him and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to institute an inquiry as a result.

The Inquiries Act 2005 provides that, to the extent that the matters dealt with are devolved, and criminal justice is devolved, the Scottish Government would have the power to conduct an inquiry. However, the wide ranging and international nature of the issues involved (even if the inquiry is confined to the trial and does not concern itself with wider matters) means that there is every likelihood of issues arising which are not devolved, which would require either a joint inquiry with or a separate inquiry by the UK government.

Separately, the Scottish Government intends to bring forward legislation to allow the SCCRC to publish a statement of reasons in cases such as Mr Al-Megrahi's where an appeal is abandoned, subject of course to legal restrictions applying to the SCCRC such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities.

The Committee also received correspondence from such varied bodies as the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, asking the latter whether they can re-open an abandoned appeal before the Court of Criminal Appeal. On the 28th of June, the freshly constituted Public Petitions Committee agreed "to refer the petition to the Justice Committee under Rule 15.6.2 for further consideration".  Under the parliament's standing orders, the Committee could have responded in a number of ways. It might have unilaterally closed the petition [Rule 15.7]. Indeed, Holyrood's Justice Committee may decide to do so in due course. One significant aspect of this development is that the chair of the committee to which the petition has been referred, the SNP's Christine Grahame, has gone on record on several occasions, questioning Megrahi's guilt. Of course, by no means does the petition's continuing survival in Holyrood suggest that any independent public enquiry will be held into the case. What it does mean, however, is that questions about the evidence against Megrahi and his culpability for the atrocity over Lockerbie will continue to find voice the Scottish public sphere, in the months to come.

SNP "bring Scotland into line with England..."

Fan-bloody-tastic. When Kenny MacAskill gave his atrocious Newsnicht interview on the SNP's sectarianism plans, I asked the following question and offered something in the way of prophecy...

So what the devil can the SNP do to get out of this muddle-guddle rapidly and with credible and concrete proposals? The answer, I suspect, will be the same one reached by the schoolboy who forgot to do his homework the night before and finds himself in a morning's panic before his first lesson - he'll peep over the shoulder of one of his fellows, and copy down their work instead, passing it off as his own.  As we discovered by looking into Iain MacWhirter's poorly informed Herald column earlier this week, stirring up hatred against persons on religious grounds is not an offence in Scotland, Tony Blair's broadly-discussed 2006 Act applying only in England and Wales. It would be an obvious and speedily solution to Scottish Ministers' unnecessary self- (or rather Eck-) imposed expedition, simply to amend the Public Order Act of 1986 up here too, so incitement of religious hatred became a stand-alone Scottish offence. It would also provide the opportunity for Ministers to use favoured commonsensical formulations and metaphors about "bringing Scotland into line" with the position South of the Border, supplemented by its air of "modernisation" and "updating" fustian legal norms with lively contemporary standards.

Scrutinising the Bill and its associated policy memorandum and explanatory notes (links and text here) imagine my dismay to read the following lines from the Government, justifying the shape of its proposed new offence of "threatening communications". Emphasis mine...

40. The offence will also criminalise threats made with the intent of stirring up religious hatred. “Religious hatred” is defined as meaning hatred against a person or group of persons based in their membership of a religious group, or of a social or cultural group with a perceived religious affiliation. The definition of “religious group” is the same as that used in section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003, which provides for a statutory aggravation that an offence was aggravated by religious prejudice. It brings Scotland into line with England and Wales, where threats intended to stir up religious hatred are criminalised by the Public Order Act 1986, as amended by Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (and both Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic have also legislated to criminalise inciting religious hatred).

41. The provision is restricted to threats made with the intent of stirring up religious hatred. As such, it does not interfere with the right to preach religious beliefs nor a person’s right to be critical of religious practices or beliefs, even in harsh or strident terms. There was extensive criticism of early attempts to criminalise incitement of religious hatred in England and Wales on the grounds that provisions extending to insults and abuse as well as threats could inadvertently criminalise comedians and satirists who make jokes about religion, or even religious texts themselves. We believe that the Bill avoids those problems and does not restrict legitimate freedom of expression.

Well whoop-de-doo. As long as ministers believe that, all's dandy, eh? Where do I sign? People may disagree with me about whether or not incitement of religious hatred should be criminalised at all - we can have a discussion about that. However, there is no line, no quietly ordered and rational reason why we simply must totter after Ireland and Norn Ireland and England here. Elsewhere in the same document, this difference between Scotland and England is presented as "a gap" by Scottish Ministers, as if it was an accidental legal oversight, rather than a considered and potentially justified political difference. Although it seems to have slipped their minds, in the House of Commons the SNP vigorously opposed Tony Blair's religious hatred Bill. Indeed, you can still find a few self-congratulatory news releases to that effect on the party's website. Ironically enough, the focus of Nationalist complaints (and the key reason why they opposed the measures) was concern that Blair's Bill would extend over Scotland. Here was Angus MacNeil MP in 2006:

"I don't think the Government properly thought through the permutations of this legislation. They could give no guarantees on the floor of the House that this would not affect Scotland. Such an absent minded and frankly reckless attitude was their ultimate undoing. As a result of tonight's vote, won by a margin of one, religious comment no longer faces the prospect of prosecution. There will be widespread satisfaction in Scotland at the result of this vote which was causing great unease."

How far we've come, when this robust defence of Scottish distinctiveness melts into this meek manager's whimper from the SNP, who reassure us that we have to be tidily "brought into line" with England and Wales. Just a little trim, sir. Nothing to trouble yourself over.  All that effort to foil Blair, and then you find yourself enacting his legislation yourself, at breakneck speed, to achieve precisely the end you once so strenuously resisted. Inspired. Whatever your view of the merits of demerits of criminalising incitement of religious hatred, in the football stadium or outside of it, I'm incandescent that the SNP government has permitted itself to be so vacuous and so cavalier about such serious issues, with any number of practical and principled tensions tugging the text this way and that. The Bill was published this morning. Holyrood's Justice Committee has issued what it unembarrassedly describes as its "call for evidence", with a deadline for written submissions of noon on Friday the 24th of June. I've a blog or two planned on the text of the Scottish Government Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill, the text of which I published this morning, which should hopefully explain some of its detail (and identify a few of its more chimerical implications, as drafted).

For Holyrood to sag before the Emperor's quixotic wheezes, however well-intentioned his basic inspiration to legislate in this area, and worse, to smile admiringly at his follies, and collude with them - is unworthy, totally unworthy of the institution and the many decent folk who serve there. It would be a terrible shame to discover that this new-constituted parliament so speedily lost any independence of mind its people once had, extracting every tribune's vertebral column on handing the new cadre of representatives their identification cards and the keys to their parliamentary offices. There are signs that some in the body recognise that. In her contribution to the Justice debate in Holyrood this week, SNP MSP and convenor of the Justice Committee, Christine Grahame, observed...

"The proposed anti-sectarianism bill is to be laid before Parliament some time this week, so we have not yet had sight of it. Notwithstanding that, I share the concerns about the fact that it is to be dealt with through emergency or truncated procedure, with little time for parliamentary let alone committee scrutiny. That rather contradicts the recent statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Parliament and Government Strategy that he wants to improve pre-legislative scrutiny. As I understand it, there will be only token scrutiny during the passage of the bill. As a back bencher and convener of the Justice Committee, I cannot say that I find that appropriate. I really do not see why the bill is emergency legislation."

I couldn't agree more.

A political case for deferring the anti-sectarianism Bill...

According to the Minister for Community Safety, Roseanna Cunningham, we can expect the Scottish Government's anti-sectarianism Bill to be introduced to Holyrood tomorrow. Which means that, after some at-pace legal wrangling, the Presiding Officer has been willing to certify that the Bill falls within the parliament's legislative competence under the Scotland Act 1998, despite the potential devolution competence and European Convention compatibility hurdles identified in my post on the fortnight left to Holyrood, to debate and scrutinise this text, before the summer recess.

After a number of post-election blogposts on the law and policy issues raised by these proposals, my own views should be familiar. Depending on the precise wording of the Bill, I anticipate strong objections of principle. More generally, whatever the first draft of this law actually says, it is recklessness and folly to blunder ahead with a piece of unscrutinised legislation in the name of a concocted emergency, the consequences of which ministers themselves have only just begun to guess and which the wider community of the realm still has had no opportunity to read, never mind deliberate upon.  That would be true whatever the subject matter of the Bill.  Such concerns ought to be all the more pressing when we are talking about empowering state agencies, through a criminal statute, to take legal action against individual citizens which is likely to have a profound implications for their liberty. A decent sense of the value of reflection and the perils of haste is not, as verve-invoking ministers might suggest, a prescription for endless delay, nor high praise for parliamentary ponderousness. There are issues in law reform which, in my view, have been investigated and mooted well beyond needful and beneficial scrutiny. This is not one of them. To ordain that no substantial evidence be taken, no time be given to would-be evidence givers to collect their thoughts, no time for parliamentarians to learn what questions they ought to be asking, never mind getting around to asking them - is reckless administration, pure and simple. Reason enough, you might think, to defer consideration of this Bill until Holyrood re-congregates after its vacation.  However, this appeal alone seems to leave the Scottish Ministers unmoved. Salmond is famously keen on the Marquess of Montrose's gambler's adage...

"He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all."

As far as this piece of legislation goes, he keeps to his genre, but comes over all Richard III...

"Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die..."

Having built himself a political cell from his promised expedition and the hasty rhetoric of a sectarian emergency requiring immediate legislative relief, Salmond has gingerly turned the locks on himself and his unfortunate Justice Secretary. Since reason seems incapable of moving the First Minister to break out of these confines, I thought a different tack was indicated, something which Mr Salmond is likely better to appreciate: picklock politics.

Observers of the Holyrood scene will well-recognise the emergence of a particular strain of opposition rhetoric, replete with dark threats about the "elected dictatorship" of the SNP, and equally implausibly, the brutalising machinery of its "one party state".  For reasons of comity and managing the danger of triumphant Nationalist crowing over a crushed and addled opposition, the SNP has a clear interest in thinking about how it uses its majority in Holyrood, and how that majority might appear, both to the public and the rather more attentive press. The election of Tricia Marwick, some observers suggested, missed an opportunity for magnanimity, permitting an opposition member to snatch the office, rather than following the PM's motto from Yes Minister: "In defeat malice, in victory revenge". The party's dominance across the convenorships of the Holyrood committees, however justified this might be by the democratic support it achieved in May, presents similar issues. A gaggle of gormless stooges, without the independence of mind God gave a oyster, does not an impressive political outfit make. Today in Holyrood, Tory MSP and Justice Spokesperson, Margaret Mitchell, closed the justice debate with a rather o'er-sharp denunciation of ... um ... lots of stuff, including Salmond's recent intemperate remarks about Lord Hope (more on which later). Aidan Skinner wasn't entirely off-piste, when he tweeted "that was a brave phalanx of junior SNP MSPs throwing themselves on points of order to defend the Emperor."  

The issue for the SNP is twofold: firstly, how are they to sustain an idea of parliament holding a government to account (thereby generating some sense of consensual politics, stymieing wrongheaded allegations of elective dictatorship)? Secondly, how are SNP backbench MSPs to avoid being (and for the party, probably more pressingly, appearing to be) a supine, incurious and unassertive band, crammers and stuffers labouring only for the whips, unwilling to articulate any robust independence of mind or recognise government fallibility or folly? 

And how, for that matter, does this connect to sectarianism? Here's how. Firstly, parliament can probably be relied upon to put up some limp disagreement with the pace of these anti-sectarian innovations. From today's debate in Holyrood, we can anticipate that these protests will cross parties. Concern about the speediness of these reforms will thus be a proper, parliamentary affair. However, if ministers press ahead, anaemic opposition qualms about the rush seem unlikely to cause the Labour Party and others to actually oppose the Bill. However unfairly, that would leave them politically vulnerable to the allegation that they are lily-livered on sectarianism, the bigots' tribunes. Unfortunately, in the world of the politician, is seems far easier quietly to pass an illiberal statute than face a such a vacuous drubbing. These opposition qualms are therefore only likely to be useful if Ministers decide to incline their heads to parliament. Here's where the the SNP's supine backbench problem comes in. How are they to demonstrate that SNP representatives will robustly hold the government to account and critically, that ministers may, now and then, fold in the face of such criticisms? 

Alex Salmond's self-imposed haste to pass this Bill was folly. And yet, it seems to me that this conjunction of events can turn that folly into a political opportunity. Why not wait for the opposition to whip up a bit of hysteria about the risks associated with breakneck criminal legislation and rely on Christine Grahame, as Convenor of the Justice Committee, to make a maverick case for delay - and more in sorrow than in anger, after a show of resistance, choreograph a ministerial deferral of the issue until Holyrood reconvenes, allowing for discussion and examination? Be even more artificial. Encourage other SNP backbenchers to vent their cares and concerns about the passage of a scantily scrutinised Sectarian Bill. It would be a splendid opportunity to rebuke those who've been talking about dictatorships and domination.

In the process, the Government would achieve a number of things. It may be monstrously cynical, but you'd struggle to find a better issue to pick, as opposition representatives will doubtless be anxious not to appear to be caballing and frivolous about an issue of serious societal concern. You may get the odd stray quote about Salmond's misjudgement in terms of timing this reform - but he has misjudged it. In the end, you'll still likely pass an Act of some character, with some juicy criminal sections, affording ministers an opportunity to utter resounding denunciations about sectarian goons and ultimately prosecute a few under the new legislation.  On the other issues I mention, how otherwise is the SNP to emphasise its parliamentary credentials - and the hardiness of its own backbenchers?

It strikes me that if you have to change your mind in government, why not change your mind on an issue you actually got wrong, which is unlikely to do you any political damage in the longer term, which serves the difficult function of emphasising the independence of your own backbenchers and government submission to parliament - and for which the opposition will find it difficult seriously to criticise you? Such a conjunction of factors seems unlikely to recur any time soon. Against this proposal - and the political case for deferring the Bill - you might put up the argument that so radically to depart from your ordained schedule for the first major policy act of your re-elected administration is a sign of weakness or an admission of error. For my part, I find the reasoned case against speedily passing this legislation most compelling. The political case, by contrast, is horribly cynical.  For those deaf to reason, however, think on this. You can still make a virtue of the necessity, and turn the trap into a political opportunity.

Holyrood's new Justice Committee...

Dawn is, I find, a friend of the Muses. I don't know which of those nine benevolent and inspiring spirits stoops her watch over bloggers, dispensing their inspiration and frustration by fickle turns. In my case, however, my creative mornings have been snatched away from me for the next couple of weeks. Anticipate fairly limited bloggery by consequence. 

However, I do want briefly to mark the fact that Holyrood has just agreed on the constitution of its Committees for the fourth Scottish Parliament. As longterm readers will know, I tend to take a particular interest in the work, deliberations and evidence laid before Holyrood's Justice Committee. Since many of its personnel are likely to be with us - and potentially winding me up - for the coming half decade, it is worth taking a wee moment to remark on these tribunes and their backgrounds. 

On a broader level, the Justice Committee has been subject to change in a number of particulars. Most strikingly, very few members of the 2007 Committee return, with plenty of new faces and folk to be contending with. From the SNP, who will convene the Committee, we have five of nine members, including Christine Grahame, Roderick Campbell, John Finnie, Colin Keir and young Humza Yousaf. From Labour, who will furnish the band with their Deputy Convenor, James Kelly and Graeme Pearson. The Tories have put up John Lamont. And finally, like the coelacanth, presumed extinct but showing some signs of life, the Liberal Democrat rump has put forward North East list MSP Alison McInnes, who has the unenviable task of being the party's spokesperson on health and justice.

A word on experience. Five of these MSPs entered Holyrood for the first time in 2011, four from the SNP and one for Labour. In the last session, Labour Member James Kelly sat on the Committee between 5 November 2009-22 March 2011 while John Lamont was the Tory substitute member, briefly (24 February 2011-22 March 2011) taking over from the now-retired Baillie Bill Aitken as Convenor of the Committee, after the latter resigned over remarks made about a rape in Glasgow city centre. Robert Brown was ranked second on the Glasgow regional list for the Liberals in the recent election, effectively deselecting him from any chance of retaining office. His party colleague Katy Gordon's priority placing didn't do her much good either, however, the Liberals losing and losing badly on the regional ballot there, returning no member.  Other past and now departed members from the last session include Labourites who lost their seats - Bill Butler, foiled by seven votes in Glasgow Anniesland and Cathy Craigie (with the best will in the world, a fearful dunce) who was handily kicked out of Cumbernauld and Kilsyth. Angela Constance left the Committee on becoming a minister late in the last session, the SNP's Stewart Maxwell entered it having lost his ministerial job, but recovers neither membership nor ministry this time around. Similarly, the SNP's Nigel Don does not return for a second stint at Justice. While some of these folk are certainly losses to the parliament's scrutiny of Justice measures, others certainly are not. So what might the new boys and girls bring?

In terms of experience, several of these folk have legal backgrounds of some stripe. Christine Grahame has a degree in Scots Law and practised as a solicitor for a time and is known for her interest in the Lockerbie Case. Roderick Campbell is a qualified advocate, albeit called to the Scottish Bar fairly recently, in 2008.  With a particular interest in the law of professional negligence and an Master of Laws in human rights, according to his professional biography, Campbell spent 18 years in a London-based law firm before donning his wig and gown - and exchanging those for the politician's suit. As his shortbread tin accent might imply, the young but twee John Lamont also qualified in law at the University of Glasgow, working as a solicitor before being elected. Labour's Graeme Pearson presents a more interesting novelty for the parliament and committee, having worked as a police officer since he was nineteen years of age, rising to the position of director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency in 2004 before quitting in 2007. Similarly, the SNP's John Finnie, while most recently Leader of the SNP Group on Highland Council, "served as a police officer for 30 years, the last fourteen as an elected full-time official of the Scottish Police Federation".

It is terribly important, however, the justice not turn into a lawyer's (or as a novelty, a polisman's) fief. Although too often overlooked, we should remember that the Justice Committee does far more than scrutinise criminal matters, the drafting of new offences or the state's enforcement mechanisms. Although the Justice section of the SNP manifesto clearly privileged "law and order" aspects of the broad portfolio, these folk will have to scrutinise a range of proposals in the field, including some tricky civil matters, in the coming term. The remaining four members of the Committee, best I've been able to discern, have no especial background in law or its enforcement. Alison McInnes and Colin Keir are former cooncillors. Humza Yousaf, still in his middle twenties, studied Politics at the  University of Glasgow - and I dare say hasn't had time to accumulate much legal experience in his short life. As I noted, James Kelly served in the Justice Committee for part of the last session - and on the basis of the parliamentary motion, either he or Pearson will be deputy to the SNP's Christine Grahame in this session, assuming widely reported predictions of her installation are fulfilled.

I must admit to being slightly dismayed that James Kelly continues to serve, not out of especial animus against the fellow. To your average punter, unobsessed by the inner workings of Holyrood's deliberative organs, Kelly is an unknown figure. For anyone, however, who has been forced or forced themselves to sit through any of his perorations, his voice is like a particularly cruel form of anaesthetic. Its lifeless monotone leeches away all sprightliness and vitality, sapping interest and attention, robbing his words of any force - but is insufficiently mighty completely to conk you out.  Cruelty to innocent peat worriers. Surely it would bring a tear to a glass eye! Since we can expect this Committee to scrutinise the SNP's highly problematic anti-sectarianism proposals - and ridiculously, the Government propose to afford them less than a month to think about them - the Committee's new members will have plenty to amuse themselves with in short order. They will also find their scrutiny scrutinised, not least by yours truly. I wish them luck. Not least because they'll be in fearful need of it...