Salmond f iasco: Government’s OWN lawyers were set to quit
SENIOR legal advisers to the Scottish Government threatened to resign if it did not concede its courtroom battle with Alex Salmond.
Heavily redacted documents summarising l egal advice in relation to the judicial review launched by the former First Minister have been published by the Holyrood inquiry looking into how complaints against him were handled.
One sets out a ‘watershed moment’ on December 21, 2018, when full details of the nature of contact between the Government’s investigating officer, Judith Mackinnon, and the women who lodged complaints were disclosed.
The legal advice stated that conceding the case before Lord Pentland in t he Court of Session was likely to be the only ‘sensible’ way forward.
A timeline published among the documents states that, on December 28: ‘ Junior counsel indicate (and it seems clear that Senior concurs) that, in light of their professional duties, they will require to withdraw from acting on January 3 if matters are not resolved by then.’
Mr Salmond received a payout of more than £500,000, with the court ruling on January 8, 2019, that the investigation had been ‘tainted by apparent bias’.
Murdo Fraser, Tory spokesman on the Salmond Inquiry, said: ‘ The contents of these documents reveal senior SNP
Government officials were hellbent on defending an indefensible case. It seems to have taken threats from outside lawyers to quit before common sense finally prevailed.
‘The Government’s cavalier and reckless action not only failed the two female complainers, it also cost taxpayers a fortune in legal costs.’
The documents were finally published yesterday after MSPs were allowed to view them on Tuesday following a long-running battle with the Scottish Government. One, which was sent to Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans, states: ‘The key point to note is the “watershed moment” of last Friday (December 21, 2018), at which point the SG’s case became [Redacted], unstateable, g i v e n what emerged that day about the nature of the contact between the IO (investigating officer) and the prospective complainers prior to their formal complaints having been made.’
It said there was nothing to suggest officials were acting ‘in bad faith’, but it was clear the process of producing documents had not been ‘systematic and comprehensive’.
It also confirms that prior contact between those who complained of harassment and the investigating officer was revealed at a late stage in the legal challenge.
Yesterday, the Government acknowledged that there had been a ‘collective organisational failure’ to gather all the relevant evidence. A statement said: ‘Lessons have been learned from that about the identification and co-ordination of documents during such processes.’
The committee also yesterday asked SNP chief executive Peter Murrell to clarify why he told it last week that he did not know about a meeting between Miss Sturgeon and Mr Salmond, only to contradict himself later in the session.