Stop the Lord Advocate Scotland joining the Judiciary for 3 - 5 years after leaving role.
The Issue
Without any prejudice, it seems apt that a time delay before entering the Judiciary (becoming a Judge) is a pragmatic method of ensuring their suitability through a longer term performance and impartiality.
It is evident from recent Malicious Prosecutions that The Lord Advocate can leave very disastrous results from their term in office and their suitability for Judiciary should not be judged until a significant period has passed that permits assessment of their time in office.
The current Lord Advocate attempted to defend the actions of the previous Lord Advocate with no apparent functional defence. What does this say for those that have issues with the Crown Office, if the the Crown are prepared to spend so much defending the indefensible. What chance the ordinary person. The sum of these highlighted failures has cost or will cost Scottish Society tens of millions of pounds.
Should/Would individuals with such questions around them be seriously considered for a role in Judiciary?
Furthermore, it will be some time before we are sure if there was impartiality in the handling of the Alex Salmond case. These things never manifest immediately. Surely it would be pertinent to have a delay in ascending to the Judiciary, giving time for any significant issues to be aired or not.
It also seems inappropriate that a Lord Advocate can sit almost immediately in Judgement of cases that were being developed for prosecution while in Office. This means these prosecutions were in principle developed under the leadership of the Lord Advocate.
Can a Lord Advocate be truly impartial in presiding over any prosecution if as the Lord Advocated stated, "it is the job of prosecutors to take difficult decisions impartially and without any regard to any extraneous considerations. They do this in the public interest and they do so on the basis of the law and the evidence. They act with complete and utter independence. That is what they routinely do. They have my absolute support and confidence."
This is not a criticism for supporting staff but it does highlight the risk of this support overflowing into individual cases. It seems appropriate that there is a time bar to allow time to distance from these relationships.
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The Issue
Without any prejudice, it seems apt that a time delay before entering the Judiciary (becoming a Judge) is a pragmatic method of ensuring their suitability through a longer term performance and impartiality.
It is evident from recent Malicious Prosecutions that The Lord Advocate can leave very disastrous results from their term in office and their suitability for Judiciary should not be judged until a significant period has passed that permits assessment of their time in office.
The current Lord Advocate attempted to defend the actions of the previous Lord Advocate with no apparent functional defence. What does this say for those that have issues with the Crown Office, if the the Crown are prepared to spend so much defending the indefensible. What chance the ordinary person. The sum of these highlighted failures has cost or will cost Scottish Society tens of millions of pounds.
Should/Would individuals with such questions around them be seriously considered for a role in Judiciary?
Furthermore, it will be some time before we are sure if there was impartiality in the handling of the Alex Salmond case. These things never manifest immediately. Surely it would be pertinent to have a delay in ascending to the Judiciary, giving time for any significant issues to be aired or not.
It also seems inappropriate that a Lord Advocate can sit almost immediately in Judgement of cases that were being developed for prosecution while in Office. This means these prosecutions were in principle developed under the leadership of the Lord Advocate.
Can a Lord Advocate be truly impartial in presiding over any prosecution if as the Lord Advocated stated, "it is the job of prosecutors to take difficult decisions impartially and without any regard to any extraneous considerations. They do this in the public interest and they do so on the basis of the law and the evidence. They act with complete and utter independence. That is what they routinely do. They have my absolute support and confidence."
This is not a criticism for supporting staff but it does highlight the risk of this support overflowing into individual cases. It seems appropriate that there is a time bar to allow time to distance from these relationships.
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on 31 May 2021