Scotland

Thursday

Alex Massie

There is something rotten in Scottish politics

It is now two years since Nicola Sturgeon accepted the need for a parliamentary inquiry into how, and why, her government’s investigation into Alex Salmond was so thoroughly tainted by apparent bias it was unlawful.   Ever since then, she has repeatedly promised that both she and her government will fully co-operate with the Holyrood committee — set up to investigate the Scottish government’s response to claims of sexual misconduct against her predecessor. Many hollow promises have been made in the still-short history of the Scottish parliament but few have been emptier than this.   It is necessary to insist upon what the committee is not investigating: it takes no view on the complaints made against Alex Salmond.

Tuesday

The Spectator

The Spectator’s response to Lady Dorrian’s judgment

Last week, The Spectator went to the High Court in Edinburgh to seek clarification on the publication of Alex Salmond's written testimony to the Parliamentary Inquiry into how the Scottish Government handled complaints against him (nothing to do with the criminal trial). We published his evidence on our website in January as a public service.  By contrast, and to our surprise, the Inquiry decided that it was unable to consider this evidence, apparently due to a court order protecting the anonymity of complainers.  We welcome Lady Dorrian’s written judgment today which confirms that - as we always believed - the court had no intention of obstructing a legitimate parliamentary inquiry established to investigate government behaviour and hold it to account.

Lady Dorrian

Lady Dorrian: High Court Ruling released

This is an application to vary an order dated 10 March 2020 made by the court at common law and under section 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981: “preventing the publication of the names and identity, and any information likely to disclose the identity, of the complainers in the case of HMA v Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond” [2] Section 11 provides that where a court having power to do so, allows a name or other matter to be withheld from the public in proceedings before the court, “the court may give such directions prohibiting the publication of that name or matter in connection with the proceedings as appear to the court to be necessary for the purpose for which it was so withheld.