Letter: Dark time for law

Tony Blair blithely tried to abolish the position of Lord Chancellor without even consulting Lord Irvine, before having to backtrack and leaving us with the anomaly of the current occupant being in the House of Commons.

He also messed up the House of Lords reform, introduced devolution as a piecemeal sop to certain Scots and Welsh without thinking through its effect on the UK constitution and democratic structures, and now expresses regret for two of his most important legislative measures - fox hunting and freedom of information.

He also adopted the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law without apparently considering many of its adverse effects, nor that his Supreme Court would effectively neuter the Scottish judicial hierarchy.

We recently enjoyed the fiasco of slopping-out, possibly requiring millions in compensation to thugs and other criminals. Some years ago it transpired that no-one had realised that Roy Jenkins' 1967 Act was not clear on how time on remand should be deducted from consecutive and concurrent sentences for multiple crimes, resulting in many criminals' releases earlier than intended.

We now see another fiasco developing in Scotland over suspects found guilty who were interrogated without legal representation, involving possible review of almost 3,500 cases; again probably resulting at best in many releases earlier than intended or at worst in "miscarriages of justice" and yet more compensation.

Clearly the law is too important to be left to the lawyers. But is it also time to consider whether we should have different laws and basic legal procedures in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK? Despite devolution, can we not adopt the best of both throughout the UK?

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews, Fife