Letter: Justice for all

Omitted from his critique are the dangers that inhere in a legal system suffused with a propensity for insularity and petty provincialism.

Hence the need for external scrutiny - a need that was amply demonstrated by the almost unhinged response of the nationalists, their dozy disciples and confused lawyers.

Ian Grant contends that civil appeals from Scotland to the then House of Lords led to "adverse consequences" - impliedly detrimental to the integrity of Scots law. Who incurs those "adverse consequences"? The aggrieved litigants whose civil law appeals were upheld, inter alia, on the grounds that the Scottish judges got the law wrong?

A more likely "'adverse consequence" is for the reputation of Scots law but that, insofar as it exposes the failings and the flaws of the Scottish legal system, is a positive, not an "adverse" consequence.

He also contends that the Supreme Court, "on the often specious grounds of human rights" can "interfere at will". Given the paucity of appeals to date, he appears to be alluding to the Cadder and Fraser appeals.

Cadder's appeal was based on the fact that he was interviewed without the presence of a lawyer, contrary to human rights law.

Fraser's appeal derived from the fact that the authorities withheld key information that could have affected the outcome of his trial and therefore breached his human rights.

The Scottish judges appear to have concluded that the "human rights grounds" of their appeals were indeed "specious" but that was not the view of the Supreme Court - consequently both appeals were upheld.

Perhaps that is the kind of "adverse consequence" that disturbs Ian Grant and the other critics of the Supreme Court: the exposure of Scots law to rigorous scrutiny by a court that is not susceptible to the subliminal power of "wha's like us" provincialism.

Those who are not so susceptible might regard the Supreme Court as the UK's ultimate barrier to injustice.

Thomas Crooks

Dundas Street

Edinburgh