Political interference with Scottish judiciary condemned

Fears over the power grab by the Scottish government, which were first reported by SLN more than two weeks ago, have now been picked up by the wider media.

The Scottish government is seeking to regulate the legal profession in a move that senior judges have unanimously warned is a threat to the profession.

The government wants to take into its own hands powers to control lawyers; remove aspects of the Court of Session’s oversight of the legal profession; and impose itself as a co-regulator along with the lord president.

The Scotsman states: “An independent judiciary free from political interference is a hallmark of a healthy democracy, just as the opposite is a sign of a dictatorship.

“For this reason, any attempt by politicians to influence and regulate the legal sector is bound to attract controversy.”

It adds: “The public might well be more concerned with seeing the independence of the judiciary protected from the manoeuvrings of the politicians of the day and their centralising instincts.

“The separation of powers among the executive, the legislature and the judiciary is essential in a democracy. Lawyers must be free to do their jobs without interference or fear of consequences.”

The newspaper suggests it is possible that the authors of the bill “do not understand the importance of the separation of powers”.

It concludes, however, that it would be far worse if they did.