Thursday 10 September 2015

Amendment to limit High Court's power to reject SCCRC references

[What follows is from a series of tweets posted today by James Chalmers, Regius Professor of Law in the University of Glasgow, about the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee’s consideration on 8 September 2015 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill:]

Justice Committee considered amendments to the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill on Tuesday - official report here: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=10071&mode=pdf

Christine Grahame defied her own party line to push an amendment limiting the High Court's power to reject SCCRC references.

That amendment was carried over the votes of the other SNP members (and Conservative abstention).

Christine Grahame was absolutely right to push that point, although presumably the government will try to undo the amendment later.

[The debate on this issue, which is important in the context of any further Megrahi appeal, is to be found in columns 36 to 41 of the Official Report. The background is explained in this blogpost.]

2 comments:

  1. Well done Christine. If you aren't careful, we'll be erecting a statue to you down Holyrood way.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I might even vote for her! ;)

    ReplyDelete