Criminal Justice Committee [Draft]

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Official Report 809KB pdf

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Subordinate Legislation

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Sheriff (Removal from Office) Order 2024 (SSI 2024/148)

The next item of business is consideration of a negative instrument. I refer members to paper 2. Do members have any questions on the instrument, or are we content with it?

I have a couple of questions that the committee might be interested in asking. I have been assisting one of the female complainers in this long drawn-out saga, and there are several questions and concerns, so I think that it is useful to give a quick synopsis of the matter.

This is the first fitness for judicial office tribunal in Scotland, having been legislated for in 2014. In March 2021, the tribunal found the individual’s behaviour to be inappropriate. However, the findings of that tribunal were quashed on appeal, because the tribunal did not take some other evidence into account. A second tribunal was held, which ruled that he had committed serious improper conduct, which is a matter of public record.

All of that took five years to conclude. In that time, the individual was suspended on full pay, which amounts to not far off £1 million in pay. As far as I understand it, the public might also be required to pay the legal costs of the individual. I have asked the Scottish Government how much that will be, and I am waiting for an answer.

The first question is whether it is proper in such circumstances for the public purse to meet the cost of a judicial office-holder’s legal fees.

The second question is about the time that it took for what appears to be a relatively straightforward process that we might imagine happening in any other walk of life. Why did that take the best part of five years? On the basis of it being a brand-new tribunal and a brand-new process, is the Scottish Government concerned that the case will be typical, or is it confident that we will not see a repeat of a five-year process?

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The third point is a possible question, but it is more a general point. The female complainer in that particular case was led to believe that she did not have an automatic right to know the outcome of the proceedings and, indeed, that it would not automatically be a matter of public record. That is at the discretion or behest of the First Minister of the day.

In March, I wrote to the First Minister at the time, Humza Yousaf, to suggest that the issue might be looked at. I would not necessarily call it a loophole, but the issue is whether there should be some form of appraisal of whether, in such a tribunal—as rare as they might be—the default position should be that complainers are informed proactively and unconditionally, and that the wider public are also informed.

Those are my thoughts.

Thank you for setting out those points. Since members have no further comments, I propose that the committee writes to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to raise those points and ask for a response from her on the particular issues that Mr Findlay has raised.

It is in everyone’s interests that the process can be trusted, both by the judicial office-holders and potential complainers.

That is in order. That completes our deliberation of the Scottish statutory instrument and concludes the public part of our meeting.

12:02 Meeting continued in private until 12:24.