Judge rejects claims of legal aid secret agenda but blasts ‘incompetence’ of officials

A JUDGE has condemned the “incompetence” of legal aid officials, but rejected claims that they operated a secret agenda against a murderer and his lawyers.

• Aidan McNeill QC claims SLAB had acted maliciously, which Judge Lord Brodie rejected

• SLAB errors mos likely to be the result of ‘ignorance and incompetence’

George McGeoch, 40, who is serving a life sentence for killing a gay man, had several requests rejected by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) when he wanted to go to court to fight his exclusion from voting in the Scottish Parliament election of 2011.

He challenged the decisions in a judicial review case in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, and it was alleged that SLAB had adopted a deliberate policy of denying legal aid in prisoner voting cases, or to McGeoch or his lawyers in particular.

Lord Brodie said SLAB had a duty to address all applications for legal aid, and the standards expected of it were high.

He ruled that the standards had not been met in McGeoch’s case, but he dismissed the claim by Aidan O’Neill, QC, that SLAB had behaved maliciously and had lied to cover up its policy.

Lord Brodie said: “The inference I draw from everything put before me is that (SLAB’s) errors were much more likely to be the result of ignorance and incompetence...decisions on quite complex applications relating to an as yet unexplored area of the law were made by persons who, understandably, did not have the necessary level of skill and experience to do so...”

The judge issued a formal declaration that a series of decisions by SLAB had been unlawful, but he refused to award any damages to McGeoch.

In 1998, McGeoch admitted murdering a 61-year-old man after meeting him by chance in Inverness city centre and going back to his flat for a drink.

McGeoch was ordered to serve at least 13 years of a life sentence, and he received a further sentence of seven and a half years in 2009 for escaping from a hospital after overpowering two guards and locking them inside their own van. He is not eligible for parole until 2015.

Human rights breach

Although it had already been established in other cases that the United Kingdom’s blanket ban on voting by prisoners breached the European Convention on Human Rights, McGeoch tried a different legal argument to be included on the electoral register for the Holyrood election two years ago,

His case went ahead, in spite of SLAB’s refusals of his applications for public funding, because his QC and solicitors agreed to work on a speculative basis where their expenses would be met by the other side if they won the case.

A single judge refused McGeoch’s petition, and that decision was upheld on appeal. A further appeal, to the Supreme Court, for which legal aid has been granted, is pending.

SLAB admitted to Lord Brodie that mistakes had been made in handling McGeoch’s applications, and blamed a failure to understand that his case was not simply identical to other prisoner voting cases.

The judge said he rejected the explanation, and found that, on occasions, SLAB had ignored points put forward by McGeoch.

“He made his contentions very clear...and at some length. That is not to say the task of understanding and evaluating these contentions was straightforward...they raise matters with which I would imagine few Scottish lawyers would claim familiarity,” said Lord Brodie.

“However, I do not consider that unfamiliarity of subject matter absolves (SLAB’s) officers from making such inquiry as is necessary...I acknowledge that their statutory duties are demanding. No doubt the resources available to discharge them are limited. However, none of this excuses (SLAB) from its corporate responsibility appropriately to address all applications made to it. “