The Lord Advocate, Rt Hon Elish Angiolini QC has today announced that she will be stepping down from office at the next Scottish election.
The Lord Advocate said that it had been an enormous privilege to serve the people of Scotland both as a prosecutor for 27 years and as a Law Officer, to two different Governments, over the last decade.
She wished to recognise the skill and dedication of all those who work in, and support, the justice system in Scotland. In particular, she thanked the team of Crown Counsel and staff of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service; and all staff in the Scottish Government legal service. (...)
First Minister Alex Salmond said:
"By next year Elish Angiolini will have completed an unprecedented 10 years as a Law Officer, including five years as Lord Advocate. In doing so, she was the first woman to hold the post and the first to be appointed by successive administrations. It has been a pleasure to work with her since 2007, and her term as Lord Advocate has been marked by significant improvements and substantial success in the disposal of justice in Scotland.
"Among her many achievements are reform of the courts system, and a much-needed new approach to tackling sexual crime. Under her leadership, recorded crime has dropped to a 32-year low in Scotland, and citizens fear crime significantly less than they did when she took office.
"She will be a substantial loss to government after next year, but her positive legacy will be long and lasting. I wish her well in her future career."
[From a press release issued this morning by the Scottish Government.
Is it too much to hope for that Mrs Angiolini's successor -- who, it is devoutly to be wished, will not be another Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service civil servant -- will have a more open mind about Lockerbie, about the damage and loss of public esteem that the Scottish criminal justice system has suffered because of it and about the best way to rectify this?]
"It has been a pleasure to work with her since 2007, and her term as Lord Advocate has been marked by significant improvements and substantial success in the disposal of justice in Scotland."
ReplyDeleteSick bag anyone?
One for me too!
ReplyDeleteWhat's the inside scoop on this? Is she being pushed out by Kenny coz she's an obstacle?
ReplyDeleteWell now Blogiston, isn't that the $64,000 question. My first thought was, "Why is she going? And at whose instigation?"
ReplyDelete"Under her leadership, recorded crime has dropped to a 32-year low in Scotland, and citizens fear crime significantly less than they did when she took office."
ReplyDeleteThis is off topic but really has to be challenged. People are certainly not less afraid of crime now. There are new ways to how police record (and don't record) crime and that is the main reason for the drop. Crime has not gone away, especially violent crime, in Scotland and the UK as a whole. I see evidence of this daily in my job. People are more afraid if anything.
People are more afraid of crime statistics.
ReplyDeleteI am also dubious of the claim that any Lord Advocate can influence the number of crimes being committed - what does she do to decrease crime? Instruct her procurator fiscal offices to drop cases? Well, that decreases crime statistics only.
I think people disregard the stats because they invariably lie. People are afraid of the reality because they see that every day in their own communities. The most vulnerable group today will be young men on their way home, alone, from wherever who have the misfortune to come across a group (4,5 or more) of other young men whose idea of a fair fight is four or five against one. The injuries these young men are willing to inflict with their feet against another human being's head or eyes are horrific. That's before you even start with knives. We live in times when it is impossible to believe anything. Police are now part of it with the number of violent incidents they fail to "crime". Thus they can trot out inaccurate statistics and make believe we live in a safe world again and everything is fine. It so isn't.
ReplyDeleteElish Angiolini is going to step down as Lord Advocate.
ReplyDeleteW George Burgess has given up as Deputy Director of Scotland's Justice Directorate.
Who's left to carry the can when Mr al-Megrahi's conviction is overturned?
Prof B how will the new LA be selected? Can you tell us?
ReplyDeleteUnder section 48 of the Scotland Act 1998, it is for the First Minister to recommend to the Queen the appointment of a person as Lord Advocate, but "he shall not do so without the agreement of the Parliament".
ReplyDeleteIn the past, the law officers have traditionally come from the ranks of the practising Bar and were supporters of the governing party. Elish Angiolini, as well as being the first woman, was the first solicitor and the first legal civil servant. It is to be hoped that it will be recognised that the appointment of a Crown Office staffer as Lord Advocate was a disastrous experiment which should never be repeated.
As far as their impact on Lockerbie goes, I'm not convinced Peter Fraser ("overwhelming evidence of guilt") or Colin Boyd ("these cables have no bearing on the credibility of the witness") were much better.
ReplyDeletePeter Fraser seems to have come out with some more interesting stuff recently though. (I'd like to see a few of the people involved in the original indictment challenged on why they trusted Giaka's supposed "evidence" instead of conspiracies about switched timer fragments, I have to say.)
Blogiston, have a read at this. You wondered about other factors?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crime-courts/shock-as-law-chief-reveals-plan-to-step-down-1.1058818
Blogiston, you wondered about other factors.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.heraldscotland.com/news/crime-courts/shock-as-law-chief-reveals-plan-to-step-down-1.1058818
Rolfe turns to page 5....
ReplyDeleteHmmm, it's not actually all that critical, and the secondary article is quite positive.
Horrible woman.
Rolfe it points out what is coming as a result of a decision which makes it clear the Scottish Legal System has been denying prisoners the basic right of having a lawyer present when first arrested. Those in that situation are expected to be freed and to sue. Which is going to cost a fortune. One would think that someone somewhere would have linked EU laws with our own and moved to do something. Yet apparently the practice continued. I agree the article isn't critical but it certainly makes clear what lies ahead when the fallout comes. By which time of course Ms Angiolini will be gone.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can recall Ms Angiolini is the first Lord Advocate (before or after devolution) to be reappointed by an incoming government of a different party to that which made the original appointment. Since anything can happen at the next election she surely cannot have assumed that she would be reappointed yet again.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the real reason for her announcement was perhaps to make her removal before the next election less likely. Had she perhaps become aware of moves afoot to sack her sooner?
So, High Court judge might be a suitable reward...
ReplyDeleteHere was me thinking Lord Advocate trumped all wigs - how little do I know? (rhet.)
"27 years of dedicated public service and who runs the taxi and security firms in Glasgow?" :- best reader comment I've read about her, from the Daily Record. A more accurate testimony for her book cover, than the one Alex Salmond unfortunately provided.
ReplyDeleteIt's unfathomable to me that Colin Boyd's lies to the Zeist Court went unpunished.
ReplyDeleteIt's even more unfathomable that Scottish citizens didn't start a near-riot over such behavior.
I can only conclude most Scots are unaware of Boyd's actions and behavior with respect to the Giaka cables.
Nobody (much) knows. I don't remember it being publicised at the time. I only found out when I read Paul Foot's booklet, relatively recently. I thought at first he must be giving only a partial version, because what he recounted was surely too shocking to be the full truth. In that and other respects (the hand-waving away of the "Bedford Suitcase", the decision that Tony Gauci's non-identification was actually an identification, and the decision that there must have been an unaccompanied suitcase on KM180 even after they'd acknowledged there wasn't, to name but a few). But as I read more, I realised he'd actually been quite restrained.
ReplyDeleteI had a recent letter to the Herald covering the Giaka stuff rejected. I don't know why the journalists aren't all over it like a rash. Do they not believe it can be that bad either?
I guess I was one of the few downloading the transcripts every day during the trial. I had waited a long time to hear what Giaka had to say. After the Giaka cables fiasco came out the Court took a break as well, so had to wait even longer.
ReplyDeletePersonally I felt that was the end of it, when Giaka was exposed as a liar along with Boyd as did some papers like the New York Times.
I was wrong obviously.
I don't remember the trial getting much publicity at the time, quite honestly. Though I admit I was living in England then.
ReplyDeleteI just remember the end and everybody saying, hey WHAT??? This was supposed to be a conspiracy, and conspirator 1 couldn't possibly have done it on his own, and no other conspirator was identified - but they acquitted conspirator 2 and convicted conspirator 1. This is batcrap crazy.
FI, how long a break did the court take when the truth about the cables came out?
ReplyDelete