Scottish lawyers accuse Johnson

THE body that represents Scotland’s top lawyers has penned an open letter to Boris Johnson accusing him of using facile, offensive and “potentially harmful” rhetoric against the legal profession.

Roddy Dunlop QC, dean of the Faculty of Advocates, said he could not fathom why the Prime Minister and Home Secretary Priti Patel had attempted to publicly vilify those who were simply doing their job.

It follows Mr Johnson’s Conservative conference speech, in which he said: “We’re also backing those police up, protecting the public by changing the law to stop the early release of serious sexual and violent offenders and stopping the whole criminal justice system from being hamstrung by what the Home Secretary would doubtless – and rightly – call the lefty human rights lawyers, and other do-gooders.”

In his letter, Mr Dunlop criticised recent comments from the Home Office, Home Secretary and Prime Minister “to the effect that there is a problem with ‘lefty lawyers’ or ‘activist lawyers’ who are ‘hamstringing’ the justice system”.

He added: “Whether the topic is immigration, or crime, or the constitution, lawyers that act against the state are not being ‘lefty’, nor ‘activist’: they are doing their professional duty.”

He said it was “simply unconscionable for Her Majesty’s Government to decry in this way the actions of professionals”.

Mr Dunlop added: “In this country (and the same cannot be said of all countries), instances of violence against lawyers are, fortunately, rare.

“However, in a climate of increasing populism, this sort of rhetoric is not only facile and offensive: it is potentially harmful.”

The advocate asked Mr Johnson and Ms Patel to “eschew such unhelpful language, and to recognise that challenges to the executive are a necessary part of our democracy”.