Objection! The rules apply even to advocates

PROFESSIONAL bodies are permitted to self-regulate, as they have codes of conduct. The Faculty of Advocates is one such outfit and its Guide to Professional Conduct is grand indeed. ‘Relationships of trust can only exist if an advocate’s personal honour and integrity are beyond doubt. ‘For the advocate, these traditional virtues are professional obligations,’ it intones. In that light, consider Joanna Cherry, Nationalist MP for Edinburgh South West. Although a non-practising QC, she flaunts those initials – her SNP webpage makes great play of her stellar legal career, her parliamentary page mentions ‘QC’ and it’s even on her Twitter handle to mark her out as an unimpeachable patrician. Trouble is Miss Cherry claimed that a nurse who dared challenge Nicola Sturgeon’s stewardship of the NHS in a TV debate was ‘married to a Tory’. The vile insinuation was that the nurse’s points were invalidated by bias. But Miss Cherry was entirely wrong about the nurse and had to apologise. Still, a complaint was lodged with the Faculty of Advocates. Now word emerges that this is ‘not the sort of thing they would investigate’. Perhaps I might refer Gordon Jackson, dean of the faculty, to his own rules. ‘Every member of the faculty, whether practising or not, must bear in mind that his conduct may reflect upon public confidence in the faculty and the legal profession.’ Strikes me that Miss Cherry’s toxic misconduct blots the escutcheon of m’learned friends and the faculty’s inaction over a sleekit attack on a member of the public reeks of a failure of its self-regulatory obligations.