(769)  LOCKERBIE APPEAL: NO DECISION YET ON DOCUMENT DISCLOSURE

On 7 March 2008 the High Court of Justiciary ruled in Megrahi v HM Advocate and Advocate General for Scotland [2008] HCJAC 15,

http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2008HCJAC15.html, that public interest immunity from disclosure of documents could be pleaded in Scottish criminal proceedings by the Advocate General acting for a UK government department.  The documents in question are held by the Crown Office and are photocopies of documents originally transmitted in confidence to the UK Government by a foreign authority.  One of the grounds on which the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission thinks there may have been a miscarriage of justice in Mr Megrahi’s 2001 conviction of the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie in December 1988 is the non-disclosure of these documents to Mr Megrahi and his lawyers at any time in the proceedings.  The Lord Advocate averred that non-disclosure was because the documents would have neither undermined the Crown case nor positively assisted Mr Megrahi.  She accepted however that one of the documents could now be appropriately disclosed for the purposes of Mr Megrahi’s appeal, subject to the Advocate General’s plea of public interest immunity in respect of the documents”.  The Advocate General’s plea was based on international relations