Key documents ‘can be given to MSPs’

KEY legal documents in the Scottish Government’s botched probe into Alex Salmond can be handed over to MSPs, Scotland’s highest court has said.

The Court of Session was dragged into a secrecy row after SNP ministers and officials refused to provide evidence which was requested by a Holyrood inquiry.

In a letter to MSPs, Pam McFarlane, the director and principal clerk of session and justiciary, said that evidence from the judicial review won by Mr Salmond in January 2019 could be handed over by the participants in the case.

Last week, the committee examining the Scottish Government’s unlawful probe into harassment complaints wrote to the court.

Convener Linda Fabiani voiced frustration at the ‘obstruction’ in obtaining key documents – including legal advice from the judicial review.

She said the Scottish Government’s ‘previous refusal to provide documentation’ has delayed the committee’s inquiry.

In her letter, she said that the Government and Mr Salmond appeared ‘ content f or t he committee to have access to court records provided all relevant legal restrictions are complied with’.

In her response, Miss McFarlane said the court could provide copies of court orders and Judge Lord Pentland’s notes of October 4 and December 14, 2018, but believes the committee may already have been provided with these documents.

She added: ‘I am unable to provide the committee with the remaining documents you seek without an order of the court directing me to do so.’

However, she noted that productions ‘generally remain the property of the party who has lodged

them’ and that both the Scottish Government and Mr Salmond had removed their submissions at the end of the case.

She added: ‘ However, there remain a large number of parts of process which might usefully be borrowed by relevant parties and made available to you.

‘I could request that the parties borrow their productions back, since the process is at an end.’

Failing this she added: ‘You, the committee, represented by the Scottish Parliament Corporate Body, may wish to consider making an application to the court for an order authorising access to the documents that the committee wishes to consider in the context of fulfilling its remit.

‘I can make no comment on whether such an application would be granted.’

Mr Salmond’s legal team had offered to make representations if the committee covered costs. The Scottish Government has said it intends to start legal proceedings f or t he release of f urther documents.

‘Might usefully be borrowed’