However, all of that said there is very little doubt that, although an important principle is involved, to whit the importance of Scotland retaining its distinctive legal system and, furthermore, a principle with which this column is in full agreement, the Nats are making a mountain out of a molehill for purely political ? and, of course, separatist ? reasons.
After all, this is only the second Scottish appeal upheld in the five years of the Supreme Court, an appeal it must be remembered that was brought under the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights to which the devolved Scottish Parliament is a signatory. And if we didn?t have that court in London adjudicating on such cases, it would be Strasbourg handing down the verdicts.
But, as this column has previously noted, Wee Eck would much rather have foreign judges in France adjudicating on Scottish cases rather than Scottish judges in London. Nutty anti-English nonsense? Of course it is, but then some of you out there must have voted for him or else he wouldn?t have achieved the majority he did on May 5.
There is a feeling amongst some of m?learned friends at the other end of the Royal Mile from Holyrood that as well as feeding his separatist agenda, Mr Salmond is being encouraged in his outspoken remarks on this issue by senior members of the Scottish judiciary who are believed to think that their former colleagues ? now members of the Supreme Court ? are ?interfering? unnecessarily in Scottish legal matters.
Me? I cannot think anyone would behave so pettily. Can you?
Instead, I think it is better to rely on the reaction of Lord Wallace, of Tankerness, the Advocate General, who oversees the legal implications of devolution. In a magisterial put down of the Nats? childish behaviour he said that he had already tasked a high-powered bunch of legal eagles to review the relationship between the Scottish courts and the Supreme Court.
They, he said, had unanimously agree that there should be a role for the latter in matters affecting devolution and he challenged Mr Salmond?s supposed expert group to come up with a different verdict; no doubt the First Minister is selecting his legal advisers carefully at this very moment!
Oh yes, and if Mr MacAskill reckons that the knowledge Supreme Court judges possess of Scotland is due solely to their attendance at the Edinburgh Festival, would it be fair to say that his knowledge of London is restricted to what he learned when locked in a police cell at Wembley following ?boisterous behaviour? before an England- Scotland match in 1999?
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