Wednesday 12 January 2011

Scottish Government obfuscation over removal of SCCRC consent requirement

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will introduce a further statutory instrument amending the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (Permitted Disclosure of Information) Order 2009 to delete Article 2(b). (S3W-38294)

Mr Kenny MacAskill: The Scottish Government intends to bring forward legislation to allow the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to publish a statement of reasons in cases where an appeal is abandoned, subject of course to legal restrictions applying to the Commission such as data protection, the convention rights of individuals and international obligations attaching to information provided by foreign authorities. (11 January 2011)

[What Christine Grahame was seeking to discover was why the Scottish Government was proposing primary legislation (ie an Act of the Scottish Parliament) to remove the requirement in the 2009 Disclosure Order that the suppliers of information to the SCCRC had to consent to its release, when the requirement itself had been imposed by secondary legislation (ie a Statutory Instrument) and could be removed in precisely the same way. Kenny MacAskill signally fails to answer that question.

The reference in the written answer to convention rights and international obligations is entirely superfluous: such rights would continue to apply whether the consent requirement were removed by primary or secondary legislation. The reference to data protection is a complete red herring. Section 194K(4) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (an Act of the UK Parliament) specifically provides that where SCCRC disclosure is permitted by a Statutory Instrument (inter alia) "the disclosure of the information is not prevented by any obligation of secrecy or other limitation on disclosure (including any such obligation or limitation imposed by, under or by virtue of any enactment) ..." This means that UK data protection legislation, or any other legislative or common law obligation of secrecy, is no bar to disclosure. (The references in the 1995 Act to the Secretary of State and to the UK Parliament must now, by virtue of the general transfer of powers provisions of the Scotland Act 1998, be read as references to the Scottish Ministers and the Scottish Parliament respectively.)]

1 comment:

  1. MISSION LOCKERBIE 2011, Doc. no 1026:
    An open letter to the Scottish Parliament

    The Truth is not more longer the silence of the desert !

    The Scottish Parliament
    Rt Hon Alex Salmond MSP
    Edinburgh
    EH99 1SP SCOTLAND

    Copy to: Secretary of Justice Kenny McAskill

    Zurich 7th of January, 2011

    Dear First Minister Hon Alex Salmond

    Re: Exonerating evidence in the "Lockerbie case"

    After 22 years of political problems with the "Lockerbie affair" and as an answer to "US Justice Undone", we would like to help the Scottish Parliament with a new forensic procedure of taking evidence to 100% rule out Libya and Mr. Abdelbaset Al Megrahi from involvement in the PanAm 103 attack.

    As a manufacturer and supplier of (green) MST-13 timers, made from 9 layers of fibre glass and delivered to the military procurement in Libya between 1985 -86 (two years before PanAm 103 crash) we could prove under the supervision of UK, EU and US experts in Edinburgh within 15 minutes that the original partial fragment DP/31(a) comes from a (brown) prototype MST-13 timer "circuit board", which was not delivered to Libya!

    The smaller partial fragment DP/31(a) was separated from the (brown) original MST-13 fragment (PT/35) on 27th of April 1990 by Siemens in Munich (DL), allegedly for forensic reasons and registered under label no. 419.
    This partial fragment was manufactured on the basis of 8 layers of fibreglass and therefore comes from a (brown) prototype
    MST-13 timer, which was not delivered to Libya!
    The *larger MST-13 partial fragment (colour brown) correspondingly was also made of 8 layers of fibreglass.
    (Ref: Siemens AG laboratory photographs ZPL-TW11-14).

    *This (brown) original partial fragment was exchanged for a duplicate (colour green) with 9 layers of fibreglass using a criminal machination as (PT/35(b), label no. 353! This was to deliberately make the link to Libya!
    On 13 - 17 September 1999, I recognised the same facts after an assessment by procurator Mirian Watson in Dumfries.
    see **(2 Police reports, Statement Of Witness).

    Unfortunately as a witness in court in Kamp van Zeist (2000) the exonerating statements were refused!
    Reason: Libya could only have been involved in the PanAm 103 attack with a 9 layer fibreglass MST-13 timer Circuit Board (colour green)...
    Hereby I volunteer myself, Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd. together with my ex Ing. Ulrich Lumpert in this important matter at short notice.

    NB: ** Statements of Witness, Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary 16th-17th September 1999 can be found on the orientation list, under section "Link" (in red text) on our webpage: www.lockerbie.ch

    Yours Sincerely
    Edwin Bollier, MEBO Ltd., Switzerland.

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