Dear All
Yet again, the SNP Government is disgracing itself, and not unsurprisingly, it’s the Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill again.
The latest blunder of perverse judgement is they think people who have disposable income of £68 a week must make a financial contribution to a trial.
This is morally wrong and corrupt thinking.
The right to a fair trial, Article Six is crucial to a decent society.
What MacAskill is proposing is to effectively shut out many of the poor from accessing lawyers.
The Law Society of Scotland says this is unfair.
The sign of a government in serious trouble is bad law, MacAskill who released the biggest mass murderer in Scottish history is a drowning man; he wants to escape his legacy.
His legacy is that he released the biggest mass murderer in Scottish history.
The tenure of him as Justice Minister has been criticised by many, things got so bad he even had to say he supported human rights in response to the Cadder Case.
In the Cadder Case, MacAskill did everything in his power to deny human rights, in what must be one of the most disgraceful exhibitions in Scottish Government history.
The Law Society is rightly up in arms; Solicitors claim they could become unpaid debt collectors as a result of proposed legislation.
Oliver Adair, convener of the society’s legal negotiation team, said the legislation would leave them as unpaid debt collectors and insisted that the Scottish Legal Aid Board should be the “obvious body” for collecting such money.
The Scottish Government is hell bent on creating enemies; their draft legislation is geared towards saving £3.9 million from the legal aid budget.
But the impact will be that accused people will simply go without lawyers to trial, thus miscarriages of justice will happen.
This is clearly an anti human rights measure, effectively innocent people have to pay to prove themselves innocent.
For the guilty, they are going to prison so they won’t be unduly worried and in some cases the Solicitors will never get their money.
Justice secretary Kenny MacAskill has said that it is “right and proper that those who can afford to pay towards the cost of their legal defence costs do so”.
This is from a man with warped judgement who released the biggest mass murderer in Scottish history from prison and then allowed him to leave Scotland’s jurisdiction.
I don’t believe he knows the meaning of right and proper.
Adair also said the society agrees that those who can afford to contribute should do so, but said:
“The Bill proposes that the threshold for determining whether a contribution is payable should be £68 disposable income a week. We do not believe that is a realistic amount from which to expect anybody to pay towards their legal costs.
“We also have concerns around some of the areas which would be included in disposable income calculations, such as disability living allowance and war pensions. This would mean some of the most vulnerable people who rely on legal aid could have to pay a sizeable contribution towards the cost of their defence directly from their benefit payments.
“The Bill as its stands would leave solicitors as unpaid public debt collectors.
“The Scottish Legal Aid Board is the obvious body for collecting the contributions. After all, they already collect contributions in civil legal aid cases and have procedures in place to carry out large-scale collection of contributions.”
Ian Hamilton of Stone of Destiny fame said awhile ago that Kenny MacAskill was unfit to be the Justice Minister of Scotland and should resign.
He shouldn’t be allowed to resign, he should be sacked by Alex Salmond, the Salmond Government is weak and ineffectual, too many bad decisions are coming out, too many errors of judgement, no vision, no ideas and it seems no sustainable future.
All Kenny MacAskill is doing is weakening a country.
His job is safe however, Alex Salmond isn’t running a government, he is running a ‘country club’ for his rich pals and how that shows as they get free rein to commit any obscenity in public office.
More independence votes lost and importantly more people turning against the SNP.
This is what happens when you appoint a grubby little ambulance chaser to high political office.
They just disgrace themselves.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
Has this idiot any idea to the true costs of hiring a lawyer, even for a minor issue?
ReplyDeleteContribution? What will be the cost of carrying out a means-tested assessment? More than £68 that is for sure. It will probably cost more to operate this scheme than will be brought in by "savings".
If this is the sort of policies that the current SNP Government want to take Scotland into independence, God help us.
This is the very reason legal aid was made available, lawyers chasing clients for money. Money that is irrecoverable. So to gaurantee fairness for all, legal aid was to be accessed to people who couldn't afford the justice of the day.
ReplyDeleteThe more I read about these clowns the more I want rid of them. Doesn't the SNP have ANY sensible policies?
Commentators warned of this when SNP had a landslide, nothing to keep them in check.