Roddy Dunlop QC

Roddy Dunlop QC made the remarks as Dorothy Bain QC was sworn in as Lord Advocate. Ms Bain replaces James Wolffe QC, during whose tenure politicians, including the SNP, committed to consulting on dividing the role.

He told Holyrood Magazine: “A lot of noise behind this is being driven by recent travails.

“If you acknowledge that there have been situations of late where problems have arisen, you have to set that against the fact the Lord Advocate’s office is centuries old and has operated sensibly and satisfactorily for centuries.

“The fact there has been a couple of difficult cases in recent times, by all means have a look at it, but don’t make change for change’s sake.”

Of the ‘not proven’ verdict, he said: “I have no interest in the politics of it. I’m only interested in whether the reasons for attacking the not proven verdict are sound and I’m not convinced they are.”

Professor James Chalmers of Glasgow University has previously tweeted about the characterisation of opposition to the ‘not proven’ verdict as “knee-jerk”. He said: “Just saw the possibility of the not proven verdict being abolished described as ‘knee-jerk’ and given that there have been arguments for its abolition since at least 1846 that’s one very slow knee.”

Writing in the Edinburgh Review in 1846, Lord Cockburn described the verdict as a “confusion of legal duty with private suspicion”.