Monday, 10 January 2011
Wafer-thin pretext for inaction
The Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm runs on its website today an article containing the full text of the Scottish Government's belated response to the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee on the Justice for Megrahi petition, along with a reaction from me.
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“…the wide ranging and international nature of the issues involved (even if the inquiry is confined to the trial and does not concern itself with wider matters) means that there is every likelihood of issues arising which are not devolved…”
ReplyDeleteWith logic like that operating, where a case for inaction can be made in any circumstance by simply moving the scope of influence or responsibility, as required, it is a wonder anything gets done, at all, at Holyrood.
In fact, why did they even bother with an FAI and trial by that logic? Because, unless it was the highly improbable case of a disaffected Border’s farmer with a shoulder-held ground-to-air missile, it must have been bleeding obvious it was a foreign plane, full of foreigners, flying between two ‘foreign’ countries with foreign perpetrators of the crime. A wide ranging and international issue beyond question, surely? But the investigation proceeded and a subsequent trial proceeded with that in mind, under the auspices of Scottish Executive services and departments – so, some time later, why not a review of the very same investigation and trial? What's changed?