Law,  Scotland

The Spectre of a Fallible Scots Legal System

Nat Fraser, who was convicted in 2003 of murdering his wife, has won his appeal to the UK Supreme Court on the grounds of significant evidence which could have acquitted him was not known to his defence. The Crown Office is seeking a retrial.

Alex Salmond is less-than pleased that a body created to unify an arbiter over all the UK legal systems – and whose current Deputy President, Lord Craighead is both a former Dean of the Faculty of Advocates and a former Lord President of the Court of Session – should have authority over Scots law.

It makes you wonder what he thinks of subordinating Scots law to Europe.

Update: the Law Society of Scotland reports:

Delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, Lord Hope said the court recognised that it had no jurisdiction to consider the test which applied in Scots law to fresh evidence appeals which did not involve a devolution issue, but the present case involved an issue of non-disclosure, which raised the question whether the trial complied with article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and which was a devolution issue

Bohica, Alex.