Alex Salmond has raised concern over the role of the Supreme Court in Scots law A spokesman for Alex Salmond has said he has “nothing to add” to a magazine article in which the first minister attacked several Scots legal figures.
Mr Salmond accused Lord Hope, deputy president of the UK Supreme Court, of “extreme” decisions.
And he said the prominent solicitor Tony Kelly was making “an incredibly comfortable living” from representing the human rights of prisoners.
Mr Salmond made the attack in an article for Holyrood magazine.
It came amid an on-going row over the role of the Supreme Court in criminal cases north of the border, which the Scottish government says is undermining the independence of the Scots legal system.
The court has the ability to rule on cases where Scots law conflicts with human rights legislation.
Attacking Lord Hope, a Scottish judge who sits on the Supreme Court, Mr Salmond told the magazine: “All I would say to Lord Hope is that I probably know a wee bit about the legal system and he probably knows a wee bit about politics.
It seems probable that Mr Salmond’s rhetoric will encourage the Supreme Court itself to be yet more minimalist still in the scope of its involvement in Scottish criminal law involvement.
Equally, it should be borne in mind that this is very far from an ordinary political complaint for a Nationalist leader.
Yes, it is seemingly about dry legal structures.
But for Alex Salmond, the Nationalist with the biggest mandate in his party’s history, it is fundamental.
“But politics and the law intertwine, and the political consequences of Lord Hope’s judgements are extreme and when the citizens of Scotland understandably vent their fury about the prospect of some of the vilest people on the planet getting lots of money off the public purse, they don’t go chapping at Lord Hope’s door, they ask their parliament what they are doing about it.”
Mr Salmond also singled out Professor Kelly, a well-known human rights lawyer and visiting law professor.
He said: “There is not a single person, outwith Professor Kelly, who was the instigator of many of the actions, that believes that the judicial system is there to serve their interests and to make sure they can make an incredibly comfortable living by trailing around the prison cells and other establishments of Scotland trying to find what might be construed as a breach of human rights of an unlimited liability back to 1999, and that is what we were faced with.
The Scottish government has appointed a group of legal experts to look into the Supreme Court issue after a ruling in the case of Nat Fraser, who was jailed for life in 2003 after being convicted of murdering his wife, Arlene, in Elgin.
Having exhausted the appeal process at home, the 52-year-old won an appeal in the Supreme Court to have his conviction quashed.
The judges remitted the case to the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal. Last week the Crown said it accepted the quashing of the conviction but was seeking a retrial, a move which is opposed by the defence.
The UK government’s senior legal adviser in Scotland, Advocate General Lord Wallace, has defended the role of the UK Supreme Court in Scots law.
He said people across the UK must have their human rights protected at the same level.
A spokesman for Mr Salmond said the article “speaks for itself” and that he had “nothing to add”.
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