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23 December 2002
Justice 2's legal expertise in doubt
Letter from Robbie Douglas Miller
Vice-chairman, Highlands and Islands Rivers Association
Scotland on Sunday, Letters, 22 December 2002
http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/letters.cfm?id=1423222002
Robbie Douglas Miller writes in response
to Pauline McNeill's letter of 12 December 2002 (1).
IT IS interesting that Pauline McNeill has responded
to Magnus Linklater’s recent article (Letters, December 15)
saying she is perturbed by what he wrote in his assessment of the
workings of the Scottish parliament’s Justice 2 Committee of
which she is convener.
That she replied at all suggests that a nerve
has been touched. Moreover, I doubt that the committee was totally
unanimous in its view that this criticism was unjustified.
She writes that "this [the Land Reform (Scotland)
Bill] has undoubtedly been the most difficult piece of legislation
to date that we as a committee have been asked to scrutinise".
It is surprising therefore that the committee took just one day
to debate the many amendments proposed for Part 3, the crofting
community right to buy. And Mr Linklater is spot on in many of his
other comments, not least that during the Stage 1 process, "those
who sought to defend the rights of property owners were exposed
to truculent and often offensive questioning".
This committee in particular has surrendered its
political neutrality, and has brought all its baggage to the table.
It has followed a party political agenda to a timetable dictated,
I would suggest, by the Executive.
Legal expertise is also suspiciously lacking -
Pauline McNeill perhaps excepted - for a committee scrutinising
legal matters of considerable complexity. And yet its members have
struck through clauses of the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill, removed
whole sections (such as Part 1, Section 11), and substituted words
which alter the Bill’s very objectives.
Professional, qualified legal advice we have received
suggests that Part 3 of this Bill alone now fails to conform with
ECHR on at least seven counts, and this opinion should cause the
committee to ask at least whether its actions and decisions might
be called to account at some point in the future.
Robbie Douglas Miller vice-chairman, Highlands
and Islands Rivers Association
References
1. No Corners Cut on Land Reform
Bill. Letter from Pauline McNeill, MSP and Convenor of the Justice
2 Committee. Scotland on Sunday, Letters, 15 December 2002. (Click
here to view).
Editorial Comment
Pauline McNeill is convenor of the Justice 2 Committee.
Her background is as follows, as per her biography
on the Scottish Parliament website:
- Qualified graphic designer, currently studying
law at Strathclyde University.
- Trade union official for ten years in the health
service.
- Long-time involvement in the campaign for devolution.
- Member of the Committee of the Campaign for
a Scottish Parliament.
- President of NUS Scotland.
- Extensive experience in health, strategic planning,
education and law.
- Member of Partick Music and Community Arts
Initiative
- Graduated in law from Strathclyde University
in 1999.
Click here
to view Pauline McNeill’s personal website.
Other members of the Justice 2 Committee are:
Committee Substitutes are:
The Justice 2 Committee Website is:
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/official_report/cttee/just2.htm
Further Reading
The Inequities of Scotland’s Land Reform Bill. Land-Care, 9
December 2002. (Click here
to view).
Land Reform Falls Foul of Scotland’s own Kangaroo Committee.
Magnus Linklater, Scotland on Sunday, 1st December 2002. (Includes
editorial comment). (Click
here to view).
Mylius, A. (2001). Access: the Reality for Farmers, Landowners,
Foresters and all Rural Residents. LandCare Scotland, 1: 3-18. (View
on Land-Care).
Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. (Click
here to view).
Community buy-out possible on the Isle of Harris. (Click
here to view). (Note: The editor understands that the possible
buy-out on the Isle of Harris has fallen through).
Further Comment from Magnus Linklater on possible community buy-out
on the Isle of Harris (28/10/02). (Click
here to view).
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