Damp squib

Today's procedural hearing (before Lord Justice General Hamilton, Lord Eassie and Lord Clarke) decided nothing of substance. The Crown and the Advocate General (representing the UK Government) had been led to believe by a communication from the court that the hearing would be purely administrative and, in the absence on holiday of their principal counsel, were not in a position to argue the merits of the appellant's petition for access to the productions used in the original trial. Accordingly, the matter was continued to 20 August when it will be combined with a hearing already fixed to consider a further petition for access to evidence. Maggie Scott QC for Megrahi had criticised the answers lodged by the Crown to her petition for not specifying the grounds upon which it was contended that access to the trial productions should be refused. The Lord Justice General said that the court recognised, and sympathised with, the appellant's frustration at the Crown's delays and his concern about the lack of specification in the Crown's answers to the petition. The court accordingly ordered a fourteen day period of written adjustment of the petition and answers to enable the position to be clarified.

The BBC News account of the proceedings can be read here.

As well as the next public procedural hearing on 20 August, there is to be a private hearing on 19 August involving only the Crown and the Advocate General. By that time the judges will have read and absorbed the mystery document in respect of which the UK Government has claimed public interest immunity. This is the very first time of which I am aware in Scottish legal history that a hearing has been convened in a criminal appeal from which the appellant and his legal representatives have been excluded. It should also be the last.