(684)  WORLD’S END: LJG v LA REACTIONS CONTINUE

 

The debate about the Lord Justice General’s criticism of the Lord Advocate’s parliamentary statement about the World’s End case (see No 681) continued in various outlets.  Maggie Scott QC sent a letter to the Scotsman newspaper, published on 1 October 2007:

 

If the government’s chief law officer uses parliament and a political platform to criticise judges’ decisions, the doors are open to political influence and interference with judicial decision-making.  The judiciary has no public platform. … If challenges to [judicial] decisions by the Lord Advocate are not confined to being taken up within the legal process or within the legal system but instead are to be launched within the political arena or the media, the result is to subject our judges to political pressure and influence.  There is then, at the least, no shield against fear or favour.

 

Ian Hamilton QC blogged on the matter at http://www.ianhamiltonqc.com/wordpress/?p=232: in his view, the Lord Advocate was right to make her statement, while at first he thought the Lord Justice General’s response was unseemly”; but upon mature reflection