Readers' Letters: Scottish Government must stop lawyers policing themselves

Many clients remain convinced that during their involvement with what Scotland's lawyers have to offer, they were “represented” by masters of ineptitude, incompetence, mediocrity, routine negligence and appalling misconduct. Subsequent to their complaints to the “regulators”, they soon discovered how the organising principle works by witnessing the total exoneration of those lawyers who ruined their cases, depleted their resources and blighted their lives. The Senators of the College of Justice opined: “An independent judiciary is central to the rule of law. The protection of the public from the arbitrary abuse of power by the state depends upon it. These proposals are a threat to the independence of the legal profession.”

If the legal establishment succeeds in blocking the bill, the lack of “protection” of the laity against the “arbitrary abuse of power” by lawyers and their regulators means that lawyers will continue to bask in the cosy and comforting embrace of their “regulators” – thereby liberating them from the distasteful prospect of effective accountability.

The Scottish Government must therefore repel the legal establishment's hostility and pass this bill into law.

Thomas Crooks, Edinburgh

Power mad

Should the Scottish public (and I include Nationalist supporters) still have any doubt as to how this discredited SNP administration want to control all aspects of public life, the proposals to oversee and regulate the independent judiciary should dispel that doubt.

The SNP proposals to give Ministers far-reaching powers to regulate the legal profession are Orwellian in nature and should cause huge concern to all. Humza Yousaf simply chooses to ignore the real concerns expressed by judges in the High Court of Judiciary, judges in the Court of Session and the Law Society of Scotland. I know whose views I respect.

Treating these views with disdain, as Humza Yousaf has done, demonstrates his craving for control and in so doing so, destroying the independence of the judiciary.

The SNP have demonstrated their total inability to run any aspect of public services but perhaps this proposed legislation should be the most concerning and every effort should be made to stop it becoming law.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh

Let’s celebrate

I have been attending the Edinburgh International Festival for over 50 years and I wish to congratulate new director Nicola Benedetti on a successful first festival. It was clear from her warm reception at the closing concert on Sunday evening that she has become a national treasure in Scotland, a great violinist who has the makings of a great and much-loved Festival director.

Of course there are criticisms one can make, and as editor of the Edinburgh Music Review it’s my duty to be critical. One issue was the introduction of flexible pricing to the festival. This technique of raising prices for popular concerts is, I think, alien to the spirit of the Festival and in answer to Nicola’s question, “Where do we go from here?” I would say scrap it and keep ticket prices accessible – after all two thirds of festival audiences come from the Edinburgh area and they are not all well off.

My other major criticism is the lack of fully staged operas which, after all, were the origins of the festival. I would suggest future planning to cooperate with Scottish Opera to restore the Festival’s reputation in the opera field.

One final suggestion would be to highlight the great wealth of traditional music in Scotland during the Festival; after all, one of the aims of the festival is to show the best of Scottish culture to the world.

“Where do we go from here?” Why, of course, on to next year’s Festival!

Hugh Kerr, Edinburgh

New Tattoo

I was so disappointed in the coverage on BBC1 of this year’s Edinburgh Tattoo. Where is Bill Paterson and his beautiful voice? The voices of Jennifer Reoch and JJ Chalmers are not voices for The Tattoo.

Nor do we need interviews in the middle of the music events. And the music needs a professional to fine-tune the sound problems.

As a tradition I always send a DVD of the Tattoo as a Christmas gift to my family in Canada. Not this year! Just not up to usual standards.

Diane McLeay, Perth

Pointless protests

Last week yet another wind farm was granted planning permission by Scottish Ministers despite the fact an earlier public inquiry identified that the development of Shepherd’s Rig windfarm near Cairnsmore of Carsphairn in Dumfries and Galloway “will undoubtedly have an impact on the experience of walking in the Galloway hills”.

The project was initially recommended for Refusal by two Scottish Government Reporters but as a result of a change in Scottish Government policy through the new National Planning Framework 4 and the Onshore Wind Policy Statement, the Reporters were forced to change their recommendation to Ministers as apparently the contribution to renewable energy targets now outweighs significant landscape and visual effects.

Mountaineering Scotland’s CEO Stuart Younie said: “Under the new policy framework renewable energy companies will be looking forward to generating big profits at the expense of our world-class landscape and we should all be very concerned about what our country is going to look like over the next 10-20 years and the potential impact this new policy will have on some of our wild and most beautiful areas.”

What is the point of having a planning system when the opinions of the public and statutory consultees are completely ignored; we might as well not bother. That, of course, is what the Scottish Government is aiming for.

Aileen Jackson, Scotland Against Spin, Uplawmoor, East Renfrewshire

Picture it

Scotland has been offered a free picture of King Charles III for public buildings, schools etc. Cue furore from the SNP and, naturally, the Greens. A waste of public money, no less.

This from two parties who could give highly detailed lectures about how to waste public money. There is an elephant in this room. If Scotland was independent it would want to have a president to fulfil the role monarchy has always done. Are no pictures of said president going to be placed anywhere? Would there be a sudden change of heart if this mythical future role was offered to either Humza Yousaf or Patrick Harvie? I suspect the answer is obvious.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Brass necks

More idiocy from the SNP, stating: “In the midst of a cost of living crisis, we do not believe portraits of His Majesty are an appropriate use of civil service time or of public funds.” But it's okay to have civil servants spend their time and our money churning out regular, ridiculous reports on the SNP's obsession with independence. These SNP idiots must use gallons of Brasso polishing their huge brass necks.

Stan Hogarth, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire

Death benefits

Has anyone looked at a link between drug and alcohol deaths and benefits received? It seems deaths in “deprived areas” in Scotland are greater than similar areas in England. In Scotland people on benefits receive 3.9 per cent more money than in England. Those with children also benefit from an extra £25 per child per week.

Having more disposable income may or may not be a contributory factor but it is worth checking as recent initiatives such as increase in unit price seems to have made very little difference.

Elizabeth Hands, Armadale, West Lothian

Fully briefed

Mairianna Clyde says I don't understand the historic nature of Scotland drugs problem (Letters, 28 August). I think that I do. When working in Glasgow ten years before Thatcher became PM, I became familiar with the "Glasgow effect", the poorer health of its citizens compared to those of equally disadvantaged Liverpool and Manchester. Stepping over drunks lying on the Byres Road pavement on mornings on my way to work in the 1970s emphasised the Scottish addiction problem that paved the way for drugs.

As for drug policies, as a microbiologist I became familiar with the Edinburgh HIV epidemic caused by its police operating an aggressive policy of needle and syringe seizure from drug addicts in the early 1980s, and kept an interest in the baleful effects of drugs, particularly the lethal effects of heroin from Afghanistan contaminated with anthrax that killed addicts in 2009-2010, most of them in Scotland.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

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