A Diary of Injustice in Scotland

NO JUSTICE for clients as Crown Office & Law Society ‘cosy deal’ allowed FRAUD accused lawyer to slip criminal prosecution & move to Lucca, Italy

2012-02-13T15:02:00.005Z

Crown Office & Law Society 'deal' allowed a ‘crooked lawyer’ to escape justice over client fraud charges. SIGNIFICANT FAILURES on the part of prosecutors at the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service and the lawyer’s regulator the Law Society of Scotland to prosecute solicitor THOMAS HUGH MURRAY over a string of fraud allegations made by his former clients have allowed the one time Stirling based lawyer who has been the subject of several investigations to slip away to the Northern Italian town of Lucca in Tuscany after the Law Society and prosecutors suspiciously failed to pursue charges the struck off solicitor embezzled £18,000 from client Neil McKechnie.

It has now emerged via the Sunday Mail newspaper that Murray, the solicitor involved in the client scam has been ARRESTED TWICE by Scottish Police, once over fraud charges and again after an attempt to flee the UK to avoid being prosecuted. However, the charges were dropped after a cosy deal was reached between the Crown Office & the Law Society of Scotland who then failed to act to protect clients.

The now Italian based Tom Murray, who as a solicitor was sequestrated in 2001 in Scotland, continues to avoid any moves to recover compensation for ruining his clients lives even though he has appeared before the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) on no less than three occasions, (i) Law Society-v-Thomas Hugh Murray 01/03/2005 (ii) Law Society-v-Thomas Hugh Murray 25/11/2005 and (iii) Law Society-v-Thomas Hugh Murray 10/12/2009. Murray was found guilty of professional misconduct in respect of misrepresentation, deception and misleading clients including his failure to tell his clients he had been barred from practising as a lawyer.

However, the Law Society of Scotland and SSDT’s attempts to prosecute Murray over the complaints have been called into question after it was alleged the solicitor appointed by the Law Society of Scotland to prosecute Murray before the Discipline Tribunal may have had a professional relationship with the very same solicitor he was supposed to be prosecuting. The details of what can only be described as a serious conflict of interest between the Law Society’s prosecution of Murray and the accused solicitor only came to light after a secret internal investigation at the Law Society, which is rumoured to have been given contradicting accounts by those involved in prosecuting Murray at the SSDT..

Philip Yelland, Director of Regulation at the Law Society of Scotland & in charge of Client Relations for the past 20 years. The Law Society of Scotland’s Philip Yelland who has been in charge of regulating solicitors for the past TWENTY YEARS, a now notorious two decades which have seem some of the worst scandals involving crooked lawyers in Scotland, wrote to Mr McKechnie, admitting : “Whilst you are quite correct in indicating that the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal considered specifically the failure of the part of Mr Murray to implement the decision made by the Law Society about the inadequate professional service you had received the written decision which would have allowed the Society to take steps to deal with the matter was not issued in December 2009 but was in fact issued by the Tribunal some months later. I should clarify that is normal practice in terms of the Tribunal and that following on from the issuing of the written findings there is a short period of appeal available.”

“What the Tribunal issues under Section 53C of the 1980 Act is the equivalent of a decree and there is therefore no reason to require service of that document on Mr Murray before consideration can be given to enforcement proceedings. As you are aware the prosecution of Mr Murray for alleged professional misconduct was continuing at that point and it is fair to say that immediate action was not taken to enforce the Section 53C order. The Society’s Fiscal however did at that point in time make some general enquiries about the enforcement of the Tribunals’ decision.”

“The challenge around the question of enforcement arises because of the fact that Mr Murray is now resident in Italy. So far as the Law Society of Scotland is aware Mr Murray is not resident in Scotland. Neither does Mr Murray have any assets in Scotland so far as the Law Society is aware.”

“That means that any enforcement proceedings would need to take place in Italy and from previous experience of other solicitors resident abroad the Society has had to look very carefully about the approach to take because of the difficulties arising both in terms of process and procedure and potential cost. That said on Thursday 19 January at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, the Society successfully served a charge on Mr Murray which opens up the possibility of other proceedings. However those will not instantly resolve outstanding matters. Accordingly I have prepared a paper to go to the Society’s Client Care Sub Committee in relation to the enforcement of this order. The reason that I am doing this is that the practicalities of endeavouring to enforce the order are extremely difficult. They are also costly.”

Prosecutors wrote to the solicitor’s victim admitting serious crimes had occurred yet they dropped the charges. The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service have also come in for stinging criticism in their failure to prosecute the solicitor over the fraud allegations after he was reported to Police by clients who had their money taken by Murray, and although Police did arrest the solicitor over the allegations, twice, the Crown Office came to a cosy arrangement with the Law Society of Scotland who were supposed to act but instead allowed the one time lawyer to slip away to Italy. The Procurator Fiscal’s Office in Stirling wrote to Mr McKechnie, stating : “A decision was taken by the Crown Office to take no further proceedings in this case: this decision was not taken lightly as we realise the seriousness of this crime.” Further attempts to gain further information relating to the refusal to prosecute the lawyer have failed, after the Crown Office refused to release any of the papers it held on Murray, raising suspicions of yet another cover up where the Lord Advocate’s team have taken decisions not to prosecute a colleague from the legal profession.

However, investigations now being carried out by independent law journalists into the Thomas Murray crooked lawyer scandal have now revealed the involvement of a prominent Scottish Sheriff in Murray’s sequestration which dates back as far as 2001, and allegations surrounding the fraudulent use of cheque books belonging to a building company and other activity which may warrant a criminal investigation. More details on these new revelations will follow in further articles.

A friend of Mr McKechnie, one of the solicitor’s victims who lost tens of thousands of pounds due to Murray’s actions, spoke to Diary of Injustice today. The friend said it was clear the Law Society and the legal establishment have gone out of their way to avoid taking any substantive action against Murray, branding their “feeble efforts to prosecute the solicitor” as little more than “an attempt to pervert the course of justice.”

He said : “The Law Society has ignored the SSDT's Legal Order for enforcement to demand payment of erroneously taken money as fees plus the maximum compensation allowable under law, despite the Society having around a dozen opportunities to do so face to face with Mr Murray. He [Tom Murray] should be arrested on 23rd February, when he appears at the Court of Session”

Mr McKechnie’s health has suffered significantly as a result of dealings with Mr Murray and the situation has been made much worse by the Law Society’s failure to resolve the matter. However, Mr McKechnie is now being assisted by his local msp, Keith Brown (SNP) who is also the Scottish Government’s Transport Minister.

The Sunday Mail reports :

LAWYER's ITALIAN JOB : LUCCAN FOR ME ? Victim's fury after £18k fraud probe solicitor jets off to new life

Feb 12 2012 Exclusive by Russell Findlay, Sunday Mail

A LAWYER accused of stealing a client’s cash dodged paying compensation by quitting Scotland for Italy. Tom Murray is holed up in the town of Lucca in Tuscany after watchdogs did not pursue allegations that he embezzled £18,000 from a client.

Murray, 49, has three times been found guilty of professional misconduct by the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal but never struck off. One victim, Neil McKechnie, 43, has accused the legal establishment of protecting Murray.

Murray was arrested by fraud squad detectives in 2007 over claims he stole more than £18,000 from Neil. Weeks later, he was arrested again for allegedly trying to flee the country. But charges were dropped after the Crown Office agreed that the Law Society should take action.

Following the decision, Helen Bruce, of the Crown’s victim unit, wrote to Neil, stating: “This decision was not taken lightly as we realise the seriousness of this crime.” Neil, from Dunblane, said: “Anyone with the misfortune of being the victim of a lawyer should realise that self-regulation is self-protection.” In 1999 Murray was accused of ripping off Stuart Usher, who later founded pressure group Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers.

It took six years for the SSDT to rule Murray “acted dishonestly” and “deceived” Stuart by charging £3500 for work which was not done. Murray was ordered to work under supervision for three years. He was back before the SSDT later in 2005 for concealing his 2001 bankruptcy from a German client. The SSDT found him guilty of “misrepresentation, deception and misleading the client” and suspended him for five years.

Murray faced a third SSDT hearing in 2009 in relation to Neil’s complaints. He was found guilty of ignoring an earlier order to repay Neil £3049 fees and £1000 compensation. But the more serious accusation of the £18,000 embezzlement was abandoned. Last month the Law Society’s Philip Yelland wrote to Neil, stating: “The challenge around the question of enforcement arises because Mr Murray is now resident in Italy.”

Murray, who has worked in Dundee, Glasgow and Stirling, and his partner Linda Kilgour rent a £750-a-week apartment near Lucca. The lawyer has hit back against his former client with allegations of harassment. He served a writ demanding £15,000 damages from Neil. But Neil claimed he was medically unfit to defend himself so Murray won by default.

Neil said: “I have suffered serious illness as a result of my dealings with this man. I am now a 22st recluse with depression and diabetes.”

CAREER CROOKED : Investigation reveals Scottish judges are CONVICTED CRIMINALS, Drunk Drivers,Tax Dodgers & alleged BENEFITS CHEATS

2012-02-03T14:28:00.005Z

Judges appointed by Scottish Ministers on the say so of other judges have become convicted criminals & alleged Benefits cheats yet Lord Advocate wont name them. AN ONGOING INVESTIGATION by Diary of Injustice into cover ups within the Scottish Judiciary and a lack of a judicial register of interests has revealed a number of Scottish Judges who can earn up to £200K a year have been investigated & charged with, or have PLED GUILTY to a string of CRIMINAL CHARGES while at least one other judge has been charged with BENEFITS FRAUD. However, prosecutors are so worried for the positions of some of the judges who have handed down guilty verdicts on criminal cases brought before them in court, the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) HAS REFUSED to disclose the identities of any of the judges involved, for fear of sparking investigations into their conduct while in office and calls for a wider investigation into Scotland’s judiciary.

The information came to light after Diary of Injustice was handed details of cases where judges have either been interviewed, charged, or cautioned by Police with regards to their conduct outside of the courtroom. As part of the still ongoing investigations, Diary of Injustice approached the Crown Office using Freedom of Information laws to seek details of members of the judiciary who had been prosecuted for criminal offences in the past few years.

The Crown Office, who issued two lengthy responses to FOI requests but refused to name any of the judges involved, even the benefits cheat, admitted several judges had been charged with, & had pled guilty to criminal offences. In comparison, if a member of the public is charged or convicted of Benefits offences by a Scottish judge, the Crown Office are more than eager to share the information with the media, pictures of the accused or those found guilty and issue lengthy comments about how the system catches those who deserve. Apparently not though when it comes to catching a crooked judge.

Mr Anthony McGeechan, the Deputy Director of Serious Casework for the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service said in his letter : “I can advise that the database operated by COPFS does not contain data that would allow COPFS to identify cases where the accused was a member of the judiciary. COPFS uses a live,operational case management system which is specifically designed to receive criminal and death reports from the police and other specialist reporting agencies and to manage these cases for prosecution purposes.The information held on the system is structured for these operational needs, rather than for statistical reporting or research purposes.”

“However, as I have identified, Procurators Fiscals report cases where an allegation is made against a member of the judiciary to Crown Office. A hard copy file dating from 2007 is held at Crown Office. The information held in that file is that that 7 members of the judiciary have been reported to COPFS for criminal offences between 2007 and the present day.”

“The courts have indicated that the most important safeguard in that regard is an absolute guarantee against publication. In particular, I consider that the details of charges contained within a report to the Procurator Fiscal from the police or other reporting agency are not necessarily a reflection of any charges which the Procurator Fiscal may bring or deem appropriate and to release these to the public could cause speculation over an allegation without it having been tested in open court. Having considered the circumstances of this particular case, I have come to the conclusion that the public interest falls overwhelmingly in maintaining the exemptions in this instance.”

The released information disclosed the following criminal cases involving Scottish judges came in a further reply from the Director of Serious Casework for the Crown Office, David Harvie :

• 3 contraventions of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, section 89 – all pled guilty – sentences of £120 and 4 penalty points; £400 and 6 penalty points and £140 and 3 penalty points.

• 1 contravention of the Road Traffic Act 1988, section 143 with an alternative charge of a contravention of section 165 of that Act – pled guilty to the alternative charge – sentence of £100

• 1 contravention of the Road Traffic Act 1988, section 5(1)(a) – pled guilty – sentence of £650 and disqualification from driving for 2 years

• 1 contravention of the Road Traffic Act 1988, section 3 – pled guilty – sentence of £200 and 4 penalty points

• 1 contravention of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, section 111A(1)(a) – plea of not guilty has been entered and the case is presently ongoing

However, the Crown Office REFUSED to release any further information on the cases, citing fears the public may be able to speculate on the nature & seriousness of the allegations & criminal charges made against the judges who Scotland’s prosecutors are increasingly relying on to hand down verdicts in cases where the Crown Office fails to present accurate or substantive evidence against accused.

Mr McGeechan continued : “The courts have indicated that the most important safeguard in that regard is an absolute guarantee against publication. In particular, I consider that the details of charges contained within a report to the Procurator Fiscal from the police or other reporting agency are not necessarily a reflection of any charges which the Procurator Fiscal may bring or deem appropriate and to release these to the public could cause speculation over an allegation without it having been tested in open court. Having considered the circumstances of this particular case, I have come to the conclusion that the public interest falls overwhelmingly in maintaining the exemptions in this instance.”

Mr McGeechan also admitted in one of the cases where ANOTHER judge had been charged with committing a criminal offence, there was “insufficient evidence to justify criminal proceedings”, a term now familiar in Scotland where members of the justice system appear to have escaped criminal proceedings on multiple occasions after ‘Crown Counsel” gave their usual ‘independent instructions’ not to proceed like in the case of the FOURTEEN LAWYERS who were not prosecuted for millions of pounds worth of LEGAL AID FRAUD after Crown Counsel gave similar instructions claiming a lack of evidence to prosecute.

The Crown Office admitted : “The one case that was not prosecuted, having carefully considered the facts and circumstances of this case, Crown Counsel gave an independent instruction that there was insufficient admissible evidence to justify criminal proceedings.”

While the information disclosed by the Crown Office, which can be viewed online here : Crown Office : Criminal Charges against Scottish Judges does not contain any names of members of the judiciary, Diary of Injustice has been made aware of other cases of a criminal nature involving Scottish judges, now being looked into by journalists.

A solicitor speaking to Diary of Injustice yesterday said it was a very serious matter that members of the judiciary who have been convicted of or are charged with criminal offences, appear to be hiding behind exemptions to Freedom of Information legislation so the public don't get to find out their identities.

He said : “Clearly it is the public interest the identities of those serving on the bench who have criminal records be released. It is also of fundamental importance to the proper administration of justice that it be established what kinds of cases have been heard by these sheriffs or judges and how the cases concluded. There could well be some miscarriages of justice in all of this.”

The ongoing investigation by Diary of Injustice into members of Scotland’s judiciary has already revealed a series of judges appear to be involved in OFFSHORE TAX AVOIDANCE schemes, associations with convicted criminals & organised crime, prostitution rackets, accepting hospitality & payments from well known corrupt solicitors representing dodgy law firms while others on the bench are engaging in questionable investments & duties which appear to be in conflict with their positions as members of the judiciary. More on these findings can be read in an earlier article here : Offshore trusts, property holdings, insurance syndicates, hospitality from dodgy lawyers, yet no plans for a register of interests for Scottish judges

It has not yet been confirmed by the Lord President what sanctions or disciplinary action, if any has been taken against any of the judges who now hold criminal records like many brought before them in court.

All sheriffs appointed in Scotland by Scottish Ministers are recommended to the position by the Lord President, after being considered by the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland, a Scottish Government quango stuffed full of High Court judges, sheriffs, lawyers & quangocrats who earn £290 per day for choosing judges to fill vacant seats on the bench.

As there is no Judicial Register of Interests in Scotland at this time, there are little if no requirements for judges to disclose their criminal records or dodgy financial interests. However, a public petition has been filed with the Scottish Parliament on this matter, now being addressed by other jurisdictions around the world such as New Zealand who are moving ahead with a Register of Pecuniary Interests of Judges Bill.

SHHH HAPPENED : Scotland’s new Information Commissioner to be Legal Complaints CEO Rosemary Agnew, rebuked FIVE TIMES for being ANTI-FOI

2012-01-31T15:07:00.003Z

SLCC’s Chief Executive Rosemary Agnew is to be the new Scottish Information Commissioner. THE Scottish Parliament has announced today that ROSEMARY AGNEW, the current Chief Executive of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) is to be appointed on Tuesday 1 February after a ‘formality vote’ by msps as the new Scottish Information Commissioner, replacing the highly successful Kevin Dunion who has served two terms in the role. However, in comparison to the widely respected Mr Dunion, Ms Agnew, who take up the post in April to be FOI Chief for the next SIX YEARS at £78K a year, is widely viewed to be anti-foi, given her less than glowing record of handling FOI requests at the SLCC, where she was rebuked at least FIVE TIMES by the current Information Commissioner for unfairly using FOI legislation to obstruct the release of data to journalists and members of the public who submitted Freedom of Information requests.

Ms Agnew was made the politicians choice for the post of Information Commissioner after a series of closed to the public recruitment hearings took place by an all women msp selection panel, comprising the following msps : Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick MSP – Chair, Margaret Burgess MSP, Helen Eadie MSP, Christine Grahame MSP, Alison McInnes MSP, Mary Scanlon MSP, Maureen Watt MSP.

Documents obtained by Diary of Injustice under Freedom of Information legislation after the SLCC was forced to publish its “Gifts & Hospitality Register revealed the Presiding Officer of the Parliament, Tricia Marwick MSP who was also chair of the all women msp panel who made Ms Agnew their choice as Information Commissioner, had offered hospitality to Ms Agnew during the time msps were considering the candidates to replace Mr Dunion. Diary of Injustice reported on these revelations, here : Legal Complaints CEO & ‘front runner’ for Scottish Information Commissioner role received hospitality from msps, law firms & Law Society of Scotland

Ms Agnew was widely tipped for the role, after leaks to the media confirmed msps wanted someone on their side in the job, covered earlier by Diary of Injustice here : SHHH Happens : SLCC Legal Complaints CEO Rosemary Agnew tipped for FOI Commissioner role after 5 FOI ‘rebukes’ & refusals to monitor Master Policy

While the Scottish Parliament’s Press Release on the appointment claims Ms Agnew “…committed to the principles of accountability and transparency …” her term at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, firstly as Head of Investigations, and secondly as Chief Executive, replacing the SLCC’s first CEO Eileen Masterman who resigned after a year in the job, saw the SLCC fail to recommend any prosecutions of crooked lawyers, a move even criticised by the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal.

Ms Agnew in her role as the SLCC’s Chief Executive was also revealed to have taken decisions which led to some clients who had complained about their solicitors facing financial ruin, after she refused repeated requests by members of the public to monitor claims made against the Master Insurance Policy, the Professional Indemnity Insurance scheme operated by the Law Society of Scotland to compensate victims of negligent “Crooked lawyers.”

The Master Policy which Ms Agnew refused to monitor claims against, was linked in an independent report carried out by the SLCC to client suicides covered up by the Law Society of Scotland & the insurers. Diary of Injustice reported on the report into the Master Policy here : Suicides, illness, broken families and ruined clients reveal true cost of Law Society's Master Policy which 'allows solicitors to sleep at night'

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission were asked for comment on the Scottish Parliament's announcement of its recommendation to appoint current CEO Rosemary Agnew as FOI Commissioner and what impact the loss of a second Chief Executive in three years has on the SLCC. No response has been received from the SLCC.

There is also no word yet on recruitment for a new SLCC Chief Executive, to a position which must be so fantastic, everyone wants out of the job as soon as they are in it.

BACKGROUND : ROSEMARY AGNEW, SLCC CHIEF EXECUTIVE

Rosemary Agnew is the SLCC’s second Chief Executive in three years. Ms Agnew took on the role after a short recruitment phase to replace the SLCC’s first Chief Executive Eileen Masterman who resigned after a bitter exchange with Cabinet Secretary for Finance John Swinney over issues involving meetings the SLCC held in connection with the Master Policy.

Ironically, one of Rosemary Agnew’s key refusals to disclose information to the public was information and discussions surrounding the SECRET SUBSTANTIAL PAY-OFF negotiated by lawyers acting for former SLCC CEO Eileen Masterman and the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. The secret payoff was also backed by the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, and Scottish Ministers also refused to disclose the amount paid to Ms Masterman. Diary of Injustice reported on the secret pay-off scandal in an earlier article here : HUSH & MONEY : Former SLCC law complaints Chief Executive Eileen Masterman received secret Scottish Government approved payoff in deal with lawyers

The Scottish Parliament’s Press Release (below) makes little reference to Ms Agnew’s work at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.

NEW SCOTTISH INFORMATION COMMISSIONER TO BE APPROVED BY PARLIAMENT

The Scottish Parliament will tomorrow be asked to approve the nomination of Rosemary Agnew as the new Scottish Information Commissioner.

Mrs Agnew, who is currently the Chief Executive of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, is set to replace Kevin Dunion who demits office on 23 February 2012.

Created under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, the Scottish Information Commissioner is responsible for enforcing and promoting Scotland’s freedom of information legislation.

The appointment will be for a fixed term of six years and attracts a salary of £78,000 per annum. The Parliament will be invited to agree Mrs Agnew’s nomination before the recommendation goes to Her Majesty The Queen for formal appointment. If approved, it is expected that Mrs Agnew will take up post in April.

Biographical Information

Prior to her work with the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, Mrs Agnew worked for the Local Government Ombudsman for 8 years. Throughout her career she has been committed to the principles of accountability and transparency and has worked with a range of public and private sector organisations to deliver service and procedural improvements.

Text of Motion to be approved by Parliament on 1 February 2012

That the Parliament nominates Rosemary Agnew to Her Majesty The Queen, for appointment as the Scottish Information Commissioner.

Legal Aid fraud running at ‘up to £14m a year’ claims insider, as SLAB refuse to release details on Law Society venture ‘to siphon off public cash’

2012-01-30T21:16:00.004Z

Lawyers cant count, but they sure can steal, says legal aid board insider. A STAGGERING CLAIM that anywhere up to 10% of the ONE HUNDRED & FORTY ONE MILLION POUND annual budget of the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB), equivalent to FOURTEEN MILLION POUNDS a year is being lost to fraudulent claims made predominantly by solicitors & law firms across Scotland has surfaced as a result of enquiries by Diary of Injustice journalists into vast lists of legal aid claims made by lawyers in connection with their work on civil and even criminal cases which are in some cases, taking up to five times longer to settle than would normally be expected, or in an exponentially growing number of cases, particularly civil damages claims, the cases “seem to be going on forever”, in some cases, taking several years to resolve, or simply be closed without a result even though vast sums of legal aid has been claimed for case work.

The claims of massive legal aid fraud in Scotland, which insiders at the Scottish Legal Aid Board say is so organised & so complicated it is overwhelming SLAB’s investigation teams, sprang to light after Diary of Injustice began inquiries into massive legal aid claims made by Kilmarnock solicitor & sole practitioner NIELS LOCKHART, who managed to rake in around SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS of taxpayer funded legal aid in an unbelievable two years and escaped any prosecution after SLAB officials accused him of making dodgy claims, reported here : One law for lawyers : Secret Report reveals Legal Aid Board, Law Society & Legal Defence Union ‘cosy relationship’ in Lockhart case

The scale of the legal aid fraud problem in Scotland has reached epic proportions, insiders claim, due in part to the recession where many law firms are experiencing such a drop in business, they have turned to what some have dubbed “organised theft” where clients are virtually being pulled off the street, asked if they have anything wrong with them, if they want to make a damages claim against anyone from local authorities to their doctors, and even including their neighbours.

In some of the cases allegedly under investigation, Diary of Injustice has been told by insiders it also appears some law firms in localised areas around Scotland have grouped together to cover each other’s fraudulent legal aid claims in attempts to prevent the Legal Aid Board’s audit & compliance teams from discovering the truth.

However, it appears some at the Law Society of Scotland have noticed the growing trend of media investigations into legal aid, and, amid fears the investigations & bad publicity would spark further difficult questions over where exactly the publicly funded legal aid was going, and how it was being used, new policies & projects were being put in place by Law Society officials to deal with the legal aid issue, which is now seen as key funding to keep many law firms afloat.

One of the ‘new projects’ to target legal aid funds, which appears to have been backed by the Law Society of Scotland, hit the buffers after many of the Law Society’s own member solicitors objected to the remit of the private company formed to handle legal aid payments, accusing the company, ESTO LAW Ltd, which was formed by members of the Law Society of Scotland’s very own legal aid negotiating team, as little more than “a legal firm created to siphon off public cash”

The five directors of ESTO LAW Ltd were John Scott QC (Edinburgh), Ian Bryce (Livingston), Ken Dalling (Stirling), Vincent McGovern (Hamilton) and Stuart Munro (Glasgow). The other directors are Neil Robertson, a partner of Ian Bryce, and John Keenan, a partner of John Scott.

The Law Society of Scotland’s journal reported that ESTO was to offer defence solicitors liable to be called out to police stations at any hour, a means of outsourcing this work without losing the client for any subsequent proceedings. It undertakes that its role will conclude once the police station work has been reported on to the instructing solicitor and to the Scottish Legal Aid Board. "This should relieve you of the pressure of providing out of hours advice, while offering reassurance that your clients are being well advised and will not be lost to you", its launch document promises. In the same article, the journal also reported that ESTO’s directors had “denied making improper use of information gained in negotiations with the legal aid authorities.”

A SLAB insider described the ESTO Law debacle as another attempt by the Law Society to retake control of the legal aid issue which floundered “… after some lawyers finally twigged where their money would be going, as in not to them!”.

However, when Diary of Injustice asked SLAB to release information regarding dealings between the directors of ESTO LAW Ltd and the Legal Aid Board, little by way of usable information was produced, with SLAB bizarrely claiming it would be “a criminal offence to supply the information” after one of the ESTO LAW Ltd directors objected to public disclosure, even though the discussions surrounded negotiations which would have involved vast sums of public money.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board said in its FOI response : I can confirm that the Board does hold information contained in documents which were received from Esto Law Ltd about the services/proposed services offered by Esto Law Ltd. However, we consider that we are exempt from disclosing the information because the following exemption applies: Section 26 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 – disclosure of the information is prohibited, for example, under an enactment.

We consider that this exemption applies because Section 34 of Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 prevents Board employees from disclosing this information without the consent of the applicant/person who supplied the information. It would be a criminal offence to supply information in breach of this provision. We contacted the director of Esto who supplied us with various information in emails regarding the services being offered by Esto and asked for his permission to disclose this information to you. The Esto director confirmed to us that he did not consent to the disclosure of the materials in these e-mails.

However, I can advise that two meetings were held between staff from the Board and representatives of Esto Law Ltd on 8 November 2011 and 23 November 2011 to have initial discussions with a view to ensuring that their proposals met the Board’s requirements for the operation of the Police Station Duty scheme, and our requirements for the registration of firms and connected solicitors. No formal applications for registration had been made at that stage. We would expect any new private firm proposing to deliver a new service such as that proposed by Esto to have discussions with us to ensure that their proposals fully met all our requirements. At no stage did we advise that any special arrangements could or would be made for Esto Ltd. No minutes were taken of these meetings.

Emails between Board staff to an Esto director about the proposed services to be provided by Esto were also disclosed, showing cosy chats between the former Law Society Legal Aid Negotiating Team and SLAB officials :

From: Kingsley Thomas, SLAB Manager of Criminal Legal Assistance

To: Vincent McGovern, Esto 23 November 2011 19:41

Following our meeting this afternoon, I have enclosed a copy of the current detention advice that our Contact Line solicitors are using to record the details of all the calls we receive from the police where a suspect requires advice, either from a named solicitor, a Contact Line solicitor, or a duty solicitor. As I mentioned today, we are currently revising this form, and introducing a new separate form for personal attendances that we do. When the new form is finalised, I’ll let you see this.

I can confirm that we will also give some more thought to the question of ESTO being on the duty plans to allow A&A to be provided.

From: Colin Lancaster, SLAB Director of Policy

To: Vincent McGovern, ESTO 9 December 2011 17:13

Thanks for this. It seems to be a draft of the agreement between esto and the client firms, rather than esto’s contract with the esto lawyers. While it’s good to see clarification of the A&A arrangements etc as between esto and client firms, I think the other contract would be the thing we would be keen to see so that we can be clear about the nature of the connection between the esto lawyers and esto, from a compliance and registration perspective. If you are in a position to send us that document, we’d be happy to look at it.

A solicitor speaking to Diary of Injustice tonight ‘hit the roof’ over the disclosures, alleging SLAB & the Law Society appear to have some dark secrets worthy of exposing on how ESTO LAW came about and what its motives were.

He said :“We need to get to the bottom of what was going on with Esto Law and the Law Society. What little has been published appears to indicate there is far too close a relationship with the Scottish Legal Aid Board and the Law Society of Scotland which is not in the public interest when it comes to legal aid matters.”

After many solicitors complained about the ESTO LAW Ltd move to grab legal aid cash, it appears the firm folded and the directors resigned, leaving the Law Society of Scotland to pick up the pieces.

Currently, the Law Society is investigating the issue, however the Glasgow Bar Association have posted an account of a meeting with the Law Society over the ESTO LAW debacle on their website, HERE which appears to indicate the Law Society are as bad at investigating their own fit ups, as they are investigating the likes of solicitors who make off with hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal aid claims each year.

TO BE OR NOT TO BE ? Lawyer who raked in £600K of Legal Aid & left clients ruined, now being investigated by Scottish Legal Complaints Commission

2012-01-24T20:36:00.005Z

A solicitor from Kilmarnock who took over £1/2 million in legal aid is being investigated by the SLCC after clients made complaints. NIELS LOCKHART, a sole practising solicitor from Kilmarnock who was the subject of several reports in the Sunday Mail newspaper last year after a joint investigation with Diary of Injustice into legal aid fraud, is now confirmed by legal insiders to be under investigation by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC), after some of Mr Lockhart’s clients filed complaints over his damaging conduct in their cases, conduct which the SLCC has been told, has left some former clients now financially ruined and with little hope of recovery. Mr Lockhart’s actions in one of the cases in particular, that of Esther Francis (70) have caused such hardship the pensioner was left homeless after losing everything from a failed claim Mr Lockhart was dealing with on Esther’s behalf. Esther was also threatened by Lockhart over the non payment of bills, leading to the pensioner having to starve herself to meet Lockhart’s demands for money.

However, despite the detailed complaints submitted to the SLCC about Mr Lockhart, and admissions from sources within the law complaints regulator they are well aware of media investigations exposing Lockhart, the SLCC sent several letters out to complainants asking if they wanted to enter into mediation over their complaints against the now infamous lawyer, rather than see justice done in a proper investigation which could eventually lead to Lockhart being struck off as a practising solicitor. In 2011, Diary of Injustice reported :

Calls to investigate Scottish Legal Aid Board & Law Society over ‘dodgy dealings’ in ‘voluntary removal’ of £600k lawyer from legal aid register THE SCOTTISH LEGAL AID BOARD (SLAB) & the Law Society of Scotland are facing calls for an inquiry into the way they both deal with alleged cases of legal aid claims abuse after it was revealed in a national newspaper a solicitor who raked in over £600,000 in legal aid claims over two years was allowed to quietly remove himself from the legal aid register after a deal had been struck between his lawyer and the legal aid board to avoid any further proceedings, even though SLAB had made a detailed complaint to the Law Society of Scotland in 2006, a complaint which took the law complaints self regulator a whopping FOUR YEARS to investigate !

One law for lawyers : Secret Report reveals Legal Aid Board, Law Society & Legal Defence Union ‘cosy relationship’ in Lockhart case Legal Aid Chiefs accused lawyer Niels Lockhart of excessive claims yet no prosecution or repayment took place. A SECRET REPORT by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) into “excessive” claims for legal aid made by Kilmarnock based solicitor Niels S Lockhart who raked in over £600,000 in legal aid claims over two years can now be published, revealing the full extent of SLAB’s accusations against the sole practitioner, the FOUR YEAR WAIT for the Law Society of Scotland to rule on the case and the intervention of the Legal Defence Union who brokered a deal allowing Mr Lockhart to walk away from all accusations over his claims for legal aid.

Legal Aid officials hid details of dodgy claims scandal as ‘Pay-Up threats’ from £600K legal aid rogue lawyer leaves pensioner, 70, starving, homeless SLAB’s secret deal with Law Society of Scotland & LDU kept info on legal aid accusations against solicitor from clients. A VULNERABLE PENSIONER was left HOMELESS & HAD TO STARVE HERSELF to pay legal fees after being threatened by Kilmarnock solicitor Niels S Lockhart over a missed £100 payment of legal bills which were originally being paid by Legal Aid. Esther Francis, 70, had gone to Niels Lockhart for help in a dispute with her housing association and was originally put on legal aid by the lawyer who has already claimed around SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS of legal aid money in previous years for other clients, however she was not told by the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) her solicitor, Mr Lockhart had ‘voluntarily’ withdrew himself from being able to provide legal aid, AFTER he was accused by SLAB of making excessive legal aid claims.

Diary of Injustice continued to report on allegations surrounding Mr Lockhart and the Law Society of Scotland’s efforts to avoid a prosecution. All previous reports can be viewed HERE.

The long story of Mr Lockhart’s legal aid claims began in the first half of the last decade, although it took the Scottish Legal Aid Board years to catch up with him, when on 5 June 2005 the Scottish Legal Aid Board sent a report to the Law Society of Scotland in terms of S32 of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 against the sole practitioner firm of Niels S Lockhart, 71 King Street, Kilmarnock. The secret report, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, can be downloaded here : SCOTTISH LEGAL AID BOARD S31 COMPLAINT REPORT TO THE LAW SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND : NIELS S LOCKHART (pdf)

The Scottish Legal Aid Board’s report outlined a number of issues that had been identified during the review of case files & accounts which raised concern about Mr Lockhart’s conduct and which fell to be considered as a breach of either Regulation 31 (3) (a) & (b), relating to his conduct when acting or selected to act for persons to whom legal aid or advice and assistance is made available, and his professional conduct generally. These issues illustrated the repetitious nature of Mr Lockhart’s failure to charge fees “actually, necessarily and reasonable incurred, due regard being bad to economy”

The heads of complaint submitted by the Scottish Legal Aid Board to the Law Society of Scotland were :

(1) Excessive attendances, (2) Lack of Progress, (3) Splitting/Repeating Subject Matters, (4) Inappropriate Requests for Increases in Authorised Expenditure, (5) Matters resubmitted under a different guise, (6) Standard Attendance Times, (7) Attendances for Matters Not Related to the Subject Matter of the Case, (8) Unreasonable Charges, (9) Double Charging for Correspondence, (10) Account entries not supported by Client Files, (11) Attempt to Circumvent Statutory Payment Procedure for Property Recovered or Preserved, (12) Continued Failure to act with Due Regard to Economy.

The report by the Scottish Legal Aid Board revealed that, of all firms in Scotland, the sole practitioner firm of NS Lockhart, 71 King Street, Kilmarnock, granted the highest number of advice and assistance applications for "interdict" (392) for the period January-October 2004.The next ranked firm granted 146, while the next ranked Kilmarnock firm granted only 30.

The report stated : “While conducting a selective analysis of Niels S Lockhart's Advice and Assistance accounts, it was clear from the outset that much of his business comes from "repeat clients" and/or members of the same household/family, whom he has frequently admitted to Advice and Assistance. The analysis revealed persistent patterns of excessive client attendances, the vast majority of which are irrelevant, unnecessary and conducted without due regard to economy.”

“It was also clear that Niels S Lockhart makes grants for a number of interlinked matters, where there is clearly a "cross-over" of advice. Consecutive grants are also often made as a continuation of the same matter shortly after authorised expenditure has expired on the previous grant.”

“This appears to the Board to be a deliberate scheme by Niels S. Lockhart to make consecutive grants of Advice and Assistance on behalf of the same client for the same matter, for personal gain. By so doing, he has succeeded in obtaining additional funds by utilising new initial levels of authorised expenditure for matters where, had further requests for increases in authorised expenditure under the initial grant been made to the Board, they would with every likelihood have been refused by Board staff.”

“Closer scrutiny of Niels S Lockhart's accounts and some client files has given rise to a number of other serious concerns, e.g. numerous meetings, standard of file notes, encouraging clients to advance matters while demonstrating a lack of progress.”

“After a meeting between SLAB officials & Mr Lockhart on 14 April 2005, Mr Lockhart was advised that SLAB’s Executive Team had approved of his firm’s accounts being removed from the guarantee of 30-day turnaround for payment of accounts, and that henceforth, to allow the Board the opportunity to satisfy itself that all fees and outlays had been properly incurred and charged by the firm, he would be required to submit additional supporting documentation and information with his accounts (including client files).”

The report continued : “Over the next few months, Mr Lockhart telephoned Accounts staff many times, often on a daily basis, repeatedly asking questions about the type of charge they considered acceptable or unacceptable in a variety of situations. Staff reported that, despite their having given Mr Lockhart the same answers time and again (both via correspondence and over the telephone),he continued to submit accounts with unacceptable charges. In a final effort to counter these continuing problems and to emphasis the Board’s stance in relation to the various issues of concern, our Accounts Department sent him a letter on 23 December 2005.”

“Mr Lockhart did not provide a written response to this correspondence. He did however contact Mr McCann of the Legal Defence Union, who wrote to the Board seeking a meeting with Board officials to try to resolve the payments issue. Our view however was that this would not advance matters as Mr Lockhart had been given a clear steer both after the April 2005 meeting and in the December when Accounts wrote to him on a number of matters.”

However, the secret report revealed SLAB officials had made a significant omission, amazingly, failing to interview any of Mr Lockhart’s clients despite the allegations of excessive legal aid claims.

The SLAB report revealed : “Board staff have not interviewed any of Mr Lockhart’s clients as we have no reason to believe that, for example, the multitude of meetings that he held with them—sometimes more than twice daily—did not take place; our concern is that they DID take place and he has sought to claim payment for these multitudinous meetings,very few of which could be described as necessary and reasonable. We believe that such work had no regard to the principle of economy: our contention is that it is highly unlikely that any private paying client would be willing to meet the cost of the service provided by Mr Lockhart. That aside, there are cases set out in the report where it is difficult to see what advice or assistance has actually been provided. Our Accounts staff are continuing to assess a number of his accounts and examining the corresponding client files which indicate repetition of the issues that gave rise to our initial concerns.”

The report’s findings concluded : “From April 2002—March 2005, Niels S Lockhart was paid £672,585 from the Legal Aid Fund. Of this, £596,734 (89%) was in relation to Advice and Assistance cases, with £570,528 (85%) solely in relation to Civil Advice and Assistance. In the Board’s view, the ranges of actions taken by Niels S. Lockhart towards achieving those payments are not those appropriate to a competent and reputable solicitor.”

“Based on the supporting evidence he arranges for, or permits, his clients to attend his office on numerous occasions for excessive, unnecessary and often irrelevant meetings. In the main, these do not appear to have advantages for their further welfare or advance their case, but merely act as a mechanism for the firm to exploit the Legal Aid Fund by charging for these unnecessary and unproductive meetings. The nature of subject matters is often repeated, resulting in numerous duplicate/multiple/consecutive grants submitted under various guises, thus avoiding the Board’s computerised checks on subject matter. This pattern of conduct is deliberate,recurring and persistent, serving—in the Board’s view—as a device to generate considerable additional income for the firm to the detriment of the Scottish Legal Aid Fund.”

SLAB’s report was heavy on accusations yet achieved little, as did their complaint to the Law Society. The Scottish Legal Aid Board presented its report & complaint to the Law Society of Scotland on the 5th June 2006 but had to wait until a stunning FOUR YEARS until August 2010 before the Law Society even got round to sending SLAB a copy of the Law Society investigator’s report, which recommended that 11 out of 12 of SLAB’s complaints were “made out” and also recommended that the Law Society exercise its powers to exclude Niels Lockhart from giving advice & assistance to or from acting for a person to whom legal aid is made available.

However, two months later in October 2010, Mr Lockhart’s legal representative James McCann of the Legal Defence Union approached SLAB with a prospective offer that Mr Lockhart would withdraw fully from providing legal aid if SLAB’s S31 complaint was withdrawn. A Minute of Agreement was drafter and agreed with Niels Lockhart & the Legal Defence Union outlining the voluntary and irrevocable withdrawal by Mr Lockhart and the firm from the provision of all firms of legal assistance (funded by legal aid). The Minute of Agreement also outlined the Board’s intention to make a press release detailing that following SLAB’s investigation into the firm and their subsequent complaint to the Law Society of Scotland, SLAB had accepted this permanent withdrawal by Mr Lockhart and the firm from providing all forms of legal assistance.

Legal Aid Board asked Law Society to withdraw complaint after secret deal was reached with Legal Defence Union. “In November 2010 SLAB advised the Law Society of Scotland that they had negotiated with Mr Lockhart his voluntary removal from the provision of legal assistance with effect from 1 November 2010 and acknowledged that the Society had separately received information from Mr Lockhart signalling his intention to withdraw from provision of all types of legal assistance. In the light of this, we sought to know from them whether they accepted SLAB’s withdrawal of the S31 complaint against Mr Lockhart.”

“In December 2010 the Law Society wrote to SLAB advising that they had accepted SLAB’s withdrawal of the complaint and that they were closing their file and taking no further action.”

SLCC Chair Jane Irvine had secret no-notes meetings with devisive Legal Defence Union in swanky Balmoral Hotel. Now, in 2012, rumours of further involvement by the legal profession on behalf of Mr Lockhart are again circulating, alleging the Legal Defence Union have again been asked to involve themselves with the SLCC over the investigations being carried out into Lockhart. If true, the rumours may damage the credibility of the SLCC even further, after an investigation by Diary of Injustice into the dark world of the Legal Defence Union revealed last year that senior members of the Legal Defence Union have enjoyed cosy get-togethers with Jane Irvine, the Chair of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission at the expensive Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, meetings in which all note taking & record keeping were barred.

In July of 2011, Diary of Injustice followed up the investigation into the LDU-SLCC relationship with the following report :

Investigation reveals Scottish Legal Complaints Commission's links, secret 'off the record' dealings with lawyers lobby group Legal Defence Union REVEALED : Law regulator’s dealings with organisation linked to client suicides & blocked prosecutions of legal aid fraudsters. AN INVESTIGATION by Diary of Injustice into dealings between the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC), the ‘independent’ quango which regulates complaints against Scottish lawyers and the Legal Defence Union, an organisation which represents the best interests of lawyers, recently linked to blocked criminal prosecutions of legal aid fraudster lawyers & also the suicide of a married Oban family man in the SLCC’s 2009 report into the Master Policy, has revealed a series of cosy meetings between the regulator & pro-lawyer lobby group at expensive Edinburgh hotels which the heads of both organisations agreed to keep off the record and away from public gaze.

According to claims from SLCC insiders who were fed up with the non-achieving law complaints regulator, the scandal hit Scottish Legal Complaints Commission and the Legal Defence Union have now become so close, SLCC staff privately joke it is now “routine” for the Legal Defence Union to intervene in complaints investigations on behalf of solicitors interests while consumers who make complaints about their solicitors to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, are not represented in any way and have no organisation to turn to for help with their complaints.

SLCC Chair Jane Irvine agreed no records of discussion between regulator & lawyer’s lobby group at Balmoral Hotel. A limited amount of papers reluctantly disclosed by the SLCC under Freedom of Information legislation show a series of discussions between the two pro-lawyer bodies bosses, Jane Irvine for the SLCC and LDU Solicitor Director William Macreath, also a partner at law firm Levy McRae, who, according to the text of one of the letters disclosed to Diary of Injustice under FOI laws, both agreed “there would be no formal records of any element of the discussion.”. The letter from Jane Irvine to the LDU Director which disclosed the secret no-records-of-meetings policy went on to detail several technical issues about complaints regulation and how the SLCC should deal with solicitors & consumers, the former apparently having much greater priority over the latter. The limited Freedom of Information disclosure of documents disclosed by the SLCC documenting only a fraction of its dealings with the Legal Defence Union can be viewed online or downloaded here : FOI Disclosure : Involvement & meetings between Scottish Legal Complaints Commission & Legal Defence Union

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission is yet to announce what, if any measures it is taking with regards to complaints made against Mr Lockhart.

Legal Complaints CEO & ‘front runner’ for Scottish Information Commissioner role received hospitality from msps, law firms & Law Society of Scotland

2012-01-19T15:42:00.008Z

Legal Complaints CEO Rosemary Agnew is ‘front runner’ for Scottish Information Commissioner role. DOCUMENTS published in response to FOI requests after an investigation by Diary of Injustice today reveal ROSEMARY AGNEW, the Chief Executive of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) who is tipped to be the Scottish Parliament’s choice as the new Scottish Information Commissioner, replacing the highly successful Kevin Dunion, has been forced to declare multiple receipts of hospitality from law firms, the Law Society of Scotland, and from politicians such as the Scottish Parliament’s very own Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick MSP, who also chaired the selection panel of seven msps who interviewed Ms Agnew as a candidate to serve as Scotland's Information Commissioner for the next EIGHT YEARS.

The SLCC was forced to publish its “Gifts & Hospitality Register” in response to Freedom of Information requests from Diary of Injustice after this journalist began investigating rumours of multiple gifts, hospitality & undeclared contact with law firms, staff & key figures from the Law Society of Scotland including former Law Society Presidents, clandestine no-notes-taken meetings in posh Edinburgh hotels between SLCC Chiefs & shady organisations such as the Legal Defence Union, insurers such as Royal Sun Alliance PLC & Marsh UK, and MSPs & their staff.

Some of the entries in the SLCC’s Gifts & Hospitality Register, which does not appear to have been kept up to date with current events, show a range of Hospitality gifts by way of dinners & occasions attended by Ms Agnew which raise questions over the closeness of contact between key staff at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission and the legal profession, which the SLCC are supposed to be regulating.

Hospitality rules ? 26/8/10 Rosemary Agnew John Schmidt, Regulation and Markets Shepherd & Wedderburn Festival Show (2) and Dinner, Chair also invited and attended.

30/09/10 Rosemary Agnew Patricia Goldie Scott Moncrieff – Internal Auditors Business Lunch

6/12/10 Rosemary Agnew Law Society of Scotland Law Society of Scotland Invitation to Christmas drinks party at their offices. Accepted

13/01/11 Rosemary Agnew Law Society of Scotland Law Society of Scotland Invitation to LSS Dinner with charity raffle 11th March 2011. Accepted

21/02/11 Rosemary Agnew Scott-Moncrieff SLCC’s Internal Auditors Informal Business Lunch at offices – accepted.

24/02/11 Rosemary Agnew Ayr Faculty Law Book token for delivering presentation, donated to the Office Charity

25/05/11 Rosemary Agnew Jamie Millar, President Law Society of Scotland Reception for the CEO of the Law Society of Malawi. Accepted

26.7.11 Rosemary Agnew National Museum of Scotland Museum Accepted. Invitation to reopening of the Museum.

Hospitality offered by Presiding Officer & Chair of selection panel during meetings to decide new Info Commissioner 12.07.11 Rosemary Agnew Tricia Marwick MSP MSP Declined. Invitation to launch reception of 2011 Festival of Politics and the World Press Photo Exhibition in Parliament’s main hall. In one entry, dated July of 2011, the SLCC’s Chief Executive Rosemary Agnew also received an invitation from the Scottish Parliament’s Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick, to attend a reception at the Scottish Parliament. While the hospitality from Ms Marwick was declined, it appears to have come at the same time Ms Agnew was considering her position in relation to applications & interviews held at the Scottish Parliament for the role of Freedom of Information Tsar after the current Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion, finished his second & final term as Scotland’s Freedom of Information guardian. of Information Commissioner in which msps were speaking to candidates who were interested in taking on the

However it now transpires from an investigation, the Scottish Parliament’s Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick who offered hospitality to Ms Agnew also sat on the all women msp selection panel which conducted the highly secret interviews of the five candidates seeking the post of Information Commissioner. The panel is rumoured in the media and by insiders to have made Ms Agnew their choice to replace Mr Dunion.

A Scottish Parliament official confirmed the identities of the cross party panel, which was made up of the following Members : Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick MSP – Chair, Margaret Burgess MSP, Helen Eadie MSP, Christine Grahame MSP, Alison McInnes MSP, Mary Scanlon MSP, Maureen Watt MSP.

While Mr Dunion is set to leave office in a matter of days, there is still no official announcement from the Scottish Parliament on who is to succeed him as the new Information Commissioner. On being quizzed about an announcement regarding the identity of who is to be Scotland’s new Information Commissioner a Scottish Parliament spokesman said: “A seven member, cross-party selection panel followed an open recruitment process with candidates assessed against a number of criteria. We expect to be in a position to confirm the nominee to Parliament, ahead of Kevin Dunion’s departure in February.”

However, amid claims msps have been looking for “a less enthusiastic candidate for the key FOI role" than Mr Dunion, who is generally regarded as being pro information disclosure, the Scottish Parliament have REFUSED to release any details about who was interviewed for the post and what information particularly concerning the candidate’s backgrounds was considered.

A solicitor from a well known law firm who have used FOI on a number of occasions spoke to to Diary of Injustice today on the subject, saying : “Given the position of Information Commissioner is of significant public interest I would have thought we are entitled to open hearings at the Scottish Parliament with the candidates appearing in front of Committees to be questioned about their attitude towards Freedom of Information rather than this secret interview process which appears to have descended into a version of the old pals act.”

He went onto say : “It seems rather suspicious to me that our msps are waiting until the last few days to announce Mr Dunion’s replacement when the position is of such importance to the public. What does the Scottish Parliament have to hide about who is taking up the role ?”

Earlier this week, in the wake of reports in the media regarding Ms Agnew’s apparent position as ‘front runner’ to replace Kevin Dunion, a key player in the recruitment process has approached Diary of Injustice for more information on Ms Agnew’s position at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission and her history of dealing with Freedom of Information disclosures after it was reported Ms Agnew has been slapped down at least FIVE times by the current Information Commissioner over significant failures in releasing information to the public & media.

Diary of Injustice asked the Information Commissioner’s office if it have been informed of who is to replace Mr Dunion in the role of Information Commissioner. A spokesperson said : “I can confirm that we have not received any notification or confirmation from the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body regarding who Kevin Dunion’s successor might be. As such it would be inappropriate for us to comment on the speculation that has surfaced in the press.”

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission and Ms Agnew have not made any comment on the situation, and so far, the SLCC have not made any public moves to advertise Ms Agnew’s job as Chief Executive, which she has held for a little over a year after replacing the controversial former SLCC CEO Eileen Masterman, who resigned after a bitter exchange with Cabinet Secretary for Finance John Swinney over issues involving meetings the SLCC held in connection with the Master Policy and claims of “ill health” which led to a secret & substantial pay-off, personally signed off by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. Diary of Injustice reported on the secret Masterman pay-off scandal in an earlier article here : HUSH & MONEY : Former SLCC law complaints Chief Executive Eileen Masterman received secret Scottish Government approved payoff in deal with lawyers

If Ms Agnew is appointed to replace Kevin Dunion as Scotland’s Information Commissioner, the SLCC will be forced to recruit its third Chief Executive in three years, leading to concerns from consumer groups, clients, and even the legal profession that there is little continuity at the anti-client law complaints quango which has achieved little since being created in 2008 by the Scottish Government as an ‘independent’ regulator to deal with complaints against Scottish lawyers

Ms Agnew’s position as front runner to be the new Scottish Information Commissioner was reported in an earlier article, here : SHHH Happens : SLCC Legal Complaints CEO Rosemary Agnew tipped for FOI Commissioner role after 5 FOI ‘rebukes’ & refusals to monitor Master Policy

The Daily Record newspaper featured further comment :

STOP SECRET : Revealed: Government, police & local councils all among public bodies who flouted anti-secrecy laws

TIP FORCED TO DISCLOSE Jan 9 2012 Exclusive by Chris Musson

A WOMAN tipped to be Scotland's new anti-secrecy tsar has had a string of rulings made against her by the man she could replace.

Rosemary Agnew, who heads the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, is one of six people interviewed to be the next Information Commissioner. But Kevin Dunion has slapped down the SLCC eight times - five since Agnew took over as Chief Executive in October 2010.

Legal Reform campaigner Peter Cherbi, who had several requests knocked back by the SLCC, cast doubt over her suitability. He said : "How someone like that could be put in charge of openness is beyond me, unless they want to shut down openness and accountability."

Agnew did not respond to requests for a comment.

HOSPITALITY FREE FOR ALL AT THE SCOTTISH LEGAL COMPLAINTS COMMISSION

The Hospitality Club : More gifts than complaints findings at Scotland’s law complaints quango. The SLCC’s registers of gifts & hospitality contains items such as invitations to dinners, drinks parties, lectures events and other gifts offered by several personalities from Scotland’s legal world including past Law Society Presidents Ian Smart & Jamie Millar, law firms such as Pagan Osborne, Shepherd & Wedderburn, Anderson Strathern, Beveridge & Kellas SSC, auditors KPMG & Deloitte, consumer organisations Consumer Focus Scotland & Which?, the Law Society of Scotland, Faculty of Advocates, the Institute of Chartered Accountants Scotland, the Medical Protection Society, the Administrative Justice & Tribunals Council Scottish Committee (AJTC), Scottish Government & others. While some members of staff are identified, others apparently are not, leaving a degree of suspicion over who attended some of the events such as law lectures at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh.

Scottish Courts remain a “Victorian”, ‘obstructive’ venue for many court users & party litigants despite small rise in ‘satisfaction survey’ results

2012-01-18T14:17:00.003Z

A two percent rise in court user satisfaction masks deep concerns over poor state of Scotland’s Courts, run by body chaired by Lord President Lord Hamilton. SCOTLAND’S COURTS and the Scots justice system have been called everything from “Victorian”, “Institutionally racist”, “Institutionally sectarian”, “Institutionally corrupt”, & “Institutionally prejudiced” to name but a few of the accusations coming from all sectors of society, from court users, consumer groups and even from the most senior members of the judiciary itself. Put simply, when the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, calls the Scottish civil justice system “Victorian” and “unfit for purpose”, there is clearly something fundamentally wrong with our courts and how they handle access to justice, a seemingly ever dwindling right of Scots.

Curiously however, this is not the picture painted in the now nearly annual survey of court users carried out by the Scottish Court Service (SCS), in which their latest 2011 study released today claims a high level of “satisfaction” among court users, resting on the back of a small two per cent rise in “satisfaction” with some aspects of the Scottish Court Service. The SCS is the ‘independent’ body which runs Scotland’s courts, established by the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008, governed by a Corporate Board and chaired by the Lord President, the most senior judge in Scotland.

The survey, carried out by MVA Consultancy on behalf of the Scottish Court Service shows that 83% of respondents were satisfied overall, the highest ever recorded level, and up from 81% in 2009. Levels were similar for professional and non-professional users, with 85% of professional respondents, and 82% of non-professionals, stating that they were either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ satisfied overall. The full survey report can be viewed online HERE with a summary HERE or downloaded from the Scottish Court website HERE

Among other findings, almost a third (31%) of respondents stated that they had travelled to court on the day of the survey as a car driver, with a further 15% stating that they were a car passenger. Over three quarters of respondents (78%) had travelled for up to 30 minutes to attend court. The majority of respondents had spoken with court staff on the day that they were surveyed, and most stated that they had found court staff to be either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ helpful (95%) and either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ polite (96%).

Less than half (46%) of all respondents stated that court staff had kept them informed about what was happening during the time they were in the court building. However, the majority of respondents (96%) who were given update information said that this information was either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ helpful. Just over half of all respondents (55%) said that they had had to wait to take part in court proceedings. Waiting times varied considerably by area.

Over half of the respondents said that they were either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ satisfied (52%) with their wait to take part in court proceedings. A further 19% said they were either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ dissatisfied. There was a high level of satisfaction with regard to perceived safety and security, ranging from 80% for the cells to 96% for the jury room.

The main factors that appear to be driving users’ overall experience are satisfaction with court staffs’ attempts to keep respondents informed about how much longer they were likely to have to wait and satisfaction with helpfulness of the information provided by the court staff. The results from the survey compare favourably with previous years, with definite improvements in overall satisfaction over time in Lothian and Borders and the High Court and Court of Session.

Since the last survey in 2009, those questioned were more satisfied with the quality of refreshments available and the comfort and cleanliness of both court rooms and waiting areas. A high 96% found Scottish Court Service (SCS) staff polite, while 95% found SCS staff helpful. For the first time security was covered showing that most users felt safe inside Scottish court buildings, ranging from 80% of those who had been in the cells to 96% of jury room users.

Scottish Court Service Chief Executive Eleanor Emberson welcomed the results, saying, ”Achieving an 83% level of satisfaction among users is a credit to all our hard working and dedicated staff. The organisation is fully committed to a Customer Service Excellence programme as a way to develop our services to meets the needs of court users. We will use the constructive comments provided in the survey to continue this improvement.“

The Scottish Court Service has conducted satisfaction surveys with public and professional court users since 2005 although finding anyone who has participated in them has proved to be more difficult than the needle in the haystack scenario. The Scottish Court Service definition of “Court users” include all who enter or transact business within the court building and this includes for example solicitors, advocates, staff, social workers, police, jurors, witnesses, accused and members of the public including those involved in or interested in civil and criminal cases. The survey was conducted across all jurisdictions (Court of Session, High Court, Sheriff Courts and Justice of the Peace Courts).

However, satisfaction levels from growing numbers of party litigants who cannot afford or cannot obtain legal representation for a variety of reasons, do not appear to fit in with the SCS survey findings which do not give one single mention of party litigants or those who appear to be involved in some of the most complicated sectors of litigation such as negligence cases against the professions & public services. There is also no mention of McKenzie Friends, otherwise known as Lay Assistants in Scottish Courts.

In one case of a party litigant currently under investigation by Diary of Injustice, a case liable to show a distinct lack of satisfaction with the Court Service, audio recordings of conversations between court staff & the party litigant appear to show the party litigant being told not to turn up at court hearings involving a highly suspicious ‘fees recovery’ action pursued by a law firm against a former client who the law firm dropped at the last minute during a damages claim against his former employer. Yet while court staff told the now seriously ill party litigant not to show up at court, the law firm at the centre of the wrangle somehow managed to persuade a Sheriff Principal to grant their demands without any regard to a fair hearing for their former client who is now so ill he is excused by doctors from the court hearings.

Further enquiries into seven other long running cases involving party litigants in Scotland’s Court of Session & Sheriff Courts have revealed not one of the party litigants who have been involved in long and difficult legal actions in the courts were consulted by or ever encountered any survey teams acting for the Scottish Court Service.

One solicitor speaking to Diary of Injustice this afternoon said “..the survey was unlikely to restore any confidence in the Scottish courts system” which has, even in the eyes of at least some members of the judiciary, been long overdue for a complete overhaul to put the public first, instead of the professions & vested interests.

Admittedly, there are steady signs of improvement in the SCS in some quarters, where, slowly but surely, parts of the courts system is beginning to open up to reforms, some of which appear to be brought about by increased media & public scrutiny of a domain still regarded by many in the legal profession as its closed shop business window. It is a fact Diary of Injustice has over the years, seen a marked increase in the willingness of the Scottish Court Service to engage the media and public in matters where previously a wall of silence was usually practised.

However, speaking as a journalist who has covered the legal system for many years now, I think we all know Scots satisfaction with the courts system overall, has a long way to go before justice in Scotland can be deemed to be reliable, trustworthy, modern or even honest and whoever is the next Lord President must be a force for change, instead of more stagnation in Scots access to justice.

SCOTS JUDGE DISATTISFIED WITH VICTORIAN JUSTICE & COURTS SYSTEM

The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, author of the Civil Courts Review. The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, in his speech to the Law Society of Scotland’s 60 year anniversary conference in 2009, reproduced in full here said : “The civil justice system in Scotland is a Victorian model that had survived by means of periodic piecemeal reforms. But in substance its structure and procedures are those of a century and a half ago. It is failing the litigant and it is failing society. It is essential that we should have a system that has disputes resolved at a judicial level that is appropriate to their degree of importance and that disputes should be dealt with expeditiously and efficiently and without unnecessary or unreasonable cost. That means that the judicial structure should be based on a proper hierarchy of courts and that the procedures should be appropriate to the nature and the importance of the case, in terms of time and cost. Scottish civil justice fails on all of these counts. Its delays are notorious. It costs deter litigants whose claims may be well-founded. Its procedures cause frustration and obstruct rather than facilitate the achievement of justice."

Solicitors from Hell website owner goes after Law Society of England & Wales with representative class action, signatures invited

2012-01-18T12:13:00.001Z

Solicitors from Hell owner is seeking to take on the Law Society of England & Wales in a class action. IF YOU have experienced a rejected complaint at the hands of the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) or Solicitors Regulator Authority (SRA), or even worse, if you have been awarded a fraction of the losses incurred by your legal representatives, you may well wish to join a REPRESENTATIVE CLASS ACTION against the Law Society of England & Wales which is being pursued by Rick Kordowski, the owner of the well known SOLICITORS FROM HELL (SfH) website, itself removed from the internet after the Law Society of England & Wales secured an interdict in the High Court on behalf of itself & other vested interests after concerns clients of ‘rogue lawyers’ had posted too much information about their experiences at the hands of their legal representatives, experiences so horrific they were liable to heavily impact on law firms business.

The website created by Mr Kordowski for the class action requests signatures of those who have not had a fair hearing with regard to their complaints against solicitors. Details follow :

Has the Legal Ombudsman or the SRA rejected or ignored your complaint? Have you been awarded a fraction of the losses you incurred?

JOIN ME in a collective ‘representative action’ against the Law Society of England and Wales on behalf of ALL who have suffered a loss as a result of a solicitor’s actions or negligence.

I believe the Law Society’s complaint handlers have failed in their ‘duty of care’ by rejecting valid complaints. Or upholding complaints - but only awarding a fraction of the loses incurred by the legal consumer.

In UK tort law, a ‘duty of care’ is a legal obligation imposed on anyone who has failed to adhere to a standard of reasonable care. I believe the Law Society’s complaint handlers have failed to adhere to this standard in hundreds of cases throughout the UK.

This action is for anyone who has genuinely suffered as a result of a solicitor’s action or negligence and is not, for example, if your solicitor has simply lost your claim or case.

Q. What is a ‘representative action’ or ‘class action’?
A. In law, a ‘representative action’ or a ‘class action’ is a type of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court against a single defendant.

Q. Are you sure? The Civil Procedure Rules (CPR 19.6) only allow persons to be represented in civil proceedings by an other if they all have ‘the same interest’.
A. I intend to use a recent judgment as a precedent. A claim by the Law Society where it was clear that the individual interests of the represented was ‘not the same’.

Q. How are you going to finance this action?
A. I will put this claim out to tender to various Barristers Chambers on a conditional fee arrangement (No win – no fee).

Q. Why are you doing this?
A. I was let down by my solicitor. The Law Society ruled in my favour and fined the solicitor £500 (payable to me). But this was a fraction of the losses I incurred as a result of the solicitor's actions. The only option then is to take direct legal action, which, for most people, the costs of individual litigation of this type is prohibited. Sound familiar? Opt in by using the form on the right.

Q. As all solicitors are insured for negligence, can they not simply make a claim to cover my losses?
A. The cost of indemnity insurance for solicitors is one of the highest, second only to plastic surgeons. A solicitor will fight tooth and nail not to make a claim and face a rise in the annual premium.

Q. If I use the ‘opt in’ form will my details be kept safe?
A. Yes, all collected information will be kept in the strictest confidence and will not be circulated, sold or published anywhere at all.

Q. My solicitor let me down by not winning my case. Can I opt in?
A. No. This is a class action claim for all who have suffered loss and want compensation for the anxiety and distress due to the negligence or the actions of a solicitor. Following which, the Law Society’s complaints handlers failed to adhere to a standard of reasonable care.

By submitting your information you understand that there is no guarantee in this action. Full details of the claim will be given to those who have opted in.

If your genuine complaint against a solicitor has been rejected or ignored by the Legal Ombudsman (or the SRA) or if you feel the compensation you were awarded was not sufficient to cover your losses please complete the form on the right. You will be added to the claim and our mailing list with regular updates.

Rick Kordowski

NAME & SHAME YOUR CROOKED LAWYER : Have you been treated roughly by your solicitor ? It’s time to talk, rate, review, name & shame YOUR crooked lawyer

2012-01-14T13:44:00.004Z

Naming & shaming a crooked lawyer is one of the best ways to warn consumers of the perils of using lawyers who fail to disclose their history to clients. IN response to last year’s court sponsored takedowns of websites such as Solicitors from Hell & others across the UK & Ireland where clients of “crooked lawyers” had used the online ratings sites to publish and even debate their usually bad experiences with their solicitors, it is very clear that in 2012, consumers who are ripped off by their legal representatives or those who know of a story involving a crooked lawyer ripping off members of the public should follow the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) naming & shaming policy, by using this year to OUT those lawyers who fail their clients, whether by negligence, corruption or multiple mistakes in an effort to ensure all consumers are protected from the rogue elements of the legal profession, whether in Scotland, England Wales, or Ireland.

Naming & shaming is terribly easy to do. Make the choice to protect yourself & others, by doing it.

If you have experience of a crooked lawyer, or if you know of anyone who has experience of a crooked lawyer, wherever you are, you can help protect yourself, or help others by ensuring the details of the story are fully published in the media while also making a complaint to bodies such as the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) and the Law Society of Scotland.

Law complaints regulators like the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission & Law Society of Scotland turn out to be client-haters rather than consumer protectors. Consumers, clients & readers may get a lot further in their complaints and get a lot more satisfaction from a media investigation of their crooked lawyers long before the Law Society or blundering SLCC get round to putting pen to paper (usually more so in an effort to protect the lawyer before protecting the client). Put simply, its more difficult for so-called regulators like the Law Society of Scotland or SLCC to let a crooked lawyer off the hook if they have already been in the newspapers a few times. Its also more difficult to let a crooked lawyer off the hook if, as usually turns out to be the case, the media reveal they have been ripping off many of their clients, not just you, or someone you know.

If you have a story about a crooked lawyer, contact Diary of Injustice via scottishlawreporters@gmail.com with full details of what happened, how you were treated and what you have done about it so far.

Publishing your experiences at the hands of crooks in the legal world will protect you, and protect others, and will also help shame some of those 70K a year plus expenses politicians in the Scottish Parliament who continue to allow lawyers to regulate themselves and cover up for their colleagues, either at the point of complaint or in the courts. Its time you, the public are heard. Its time consumers and clients who fund the legal profession come first and make sure YOU, the fee paying client have the final say in what happens to YOUR crooked lawyer.

As the Sunday Mail reveals, clients & consumers are usually not aware their own crooked lawyer is ripping off a host of others, and getting away with it, until the media comes along and reports it to the wider world :

REVEALED: TOP LAWYER AT THE CENTRE OF 12 NEGLIGENCE CLAIMS

EXCLUSIVE Brief who's making a career out of failure

By Russell Findlay April 23 2006 Sunday Mail

THIS is the high-flying solicitor at the centre of a remarkable 12 negligence claims.

John O'Donnell, 54, makes a comfortable living from conducting complicated property transactions.

But we can reveal insurers Royal & Sun Alliance have already been forced to pay out £350,000 on seven negligence claims against him. And at least five more worth £200,000 are still being contested. His firm, John G O'Donnell & Co, is based in Cathcart, Glasgow. The Law Society for Scotland, who govern the conduct of lawyers, keep his record of complaints a secret.

O'Donnell has also been accused of misconduct but the Law Society, â„¢ has not brought any cases to the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal. The claims centre on complicated transactions involving property and mortgages. 9 One case settled with an £81,000 payout involved Glasgow boxing promoter Alex Morrison, 67, for whom O'Donnell acted in the 2002 sale of his Sydney Street gym to Scottish Enterprise for £130,000. The sale money should have gone to Morrison's offshore firm, Decafarm Ltd, but was instead issued to O'Donnell's.

Decafarm complained to Strathclyde Police fraud squad but the procurator fiscal decided not to prosecute. 9 In other cases, his clients took out two mortgages on property and sold the property, paying off one mortgage. The others lender then had to pursue the solicitor for negligence to get their money back - and his insurance paid out.

Last night, ex-SNP leader and legal reform campaigner John Swinney said: "This appears a clear example of why a robust and independent complaints handling system is required. I hope forthcoming legislation to be considered by Parliament will address these issues."

Peter Cherbi, of Injustice Scotland, said: "If you buy a tin of beans, you can see the ingredients on the label. If you're paying a solicitor, you should be aware of what he or she has been up to. I'm also asking Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson to revoke the exemption of the Law Society of Scotland from the Freedom of Information Act."

Last month, it emerged that complaints against lawyers had risen 30 per cent in a year to almost 5000. But a Law Society of Scotland spokesman said: "The consumer protections for clients of Scottish solicitors are second to none."

Last night, a legal firm issued a statement on his behalf. It read: During 2000-2002, John O'Donnell received treatment for a mental illness. He was diagnosed with clinical depression. During those dark days, Mr O'Donnell accepts his own high standards slipped. Indeed, when making a determination, the Law Society of Scotland makes reference to his illness, citing this as 'extenuating circumstances'. "In 2003, Mr O'Donnell started a new legal practice and has many loyal and satisfied clients."

Two years ago, the Sunday Mail revealed that O'Donnell's office was searched by police as part of a money-laundering probe into McGovern crime family lieutenant, Russell Stirton, 46.

Remember Remember – Where there’s a will there’s a crook. Suspension from legal practice is, however, no deterrence for crooks to come back and rip off people and their wills, as a recent Sunday Mail article exposed the case of the former jailed lawyer Valerie Macadam, now Valerie Penny returned from legal oblivion & started her own will writing business without telling her new clients she was jailed for embezzlement. Quoting from the Sunday Mail article : “A CROOKED lawyer jailed for stealing money from dead clients is back in business, we can reveal. Valerie Penny, 54, runs a slick website to lure customers into handing over £80 for wills. She is selling the same legal services she used to steal £130,000 from clients and their estates - a catalogue of dishonesty that landed her in prison. The struck-off solicitor, who was called Macadam before her marriage, boasts of her "successful career". But she makes no mention of her jail time for robbing clients' cash or her shocking record of professional misconduct.”

Misplaced trust with complaints : Philip Yelland, the Law Society of Scotland’s Director of Regulation for over 20 years yet Scotland has more crooked lawyers than ever. Philip Yelland, the Law Society of Scotland’s director of standards, previously director of regulation and before that head of the Law Society’s horrifically named “Client Relations Office” has been in charge of regulating crooked lawyers in Scotland for over TWENTY YEARS yet from Penman to the present and beyond, most crooked Scottish lawyers have either received a slap on the wrist or no punishment at all while the client ends up financially ruined and excluded from the courts to make sure justice can never be done. Would you trust anyone like this with your complaint ? Make sure you use the media first before trusting the Law Society or SLCC with your lawyer problems.

SHHH Happens : SLCC Legal Complaints CEO Rosemary Agnew tipped for FOI Commissioner role after 5 FOI ‘rebukes’ & refusals to monitor Master Policy

2012-01-09T14:20:00.008Z

Rosemary Agnew, Chief Executive of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission tipped for FOI anti-secrecy role. ROSEMARY AGNEW the current Chief Executive of the under achieving, anti-consumer law complaints quango, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) which has today been named along with other Scottish public bodies in a Hall of Shame of organisations including the Scottish Government, Police, quangos & local authorities which deliberately mishandle Freedom of Information requests & disclosures, is reported to be tipped in the secret race to replace current Information Commissioner Kevin Dunion who leaves office in February 2012.

However, it can also be revealed today Ms Agnew in her capacity as SLCC Chief Executive has been rebuked by the current Information Commissioner, Mr Dunion on at least FIVE OCCASIONS for failures in handling FOI disclosures, one of which included the withholding of sensitive compensation payments data during the period Ms Agnew was actually being interviewed for the post of FOI Commissioner by Scottish Parliament officials.

The Scottish Parliament Corporate Body (SPCB) which itself has been responsible for many controversial decisions including the runaway construction budget of the Scottish Parliament itself, topping half a billion pounds of taxpayers money, is rumoured to be at the point of recommending Ms Agnew’s appointment to the post of FOI Commissioner to msps in the next few days. Yet so far, the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission and even Ms Agnew herself have all refused detailed comment on the seemingly controversial appointment, which was revealed today in the Daily Record newspaper.

Asked about the rumoured controversial recommendation of Ms Agnew to fill the FOI Commissioner role, a Scottish Parliament spokesman simply said : “We expect to be in a position to confirm the nominee to Parliament early in the new year, ahead of Kevin Dunion’s departure in February.”

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission were contacted for comment and asked : “Does the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission have any comment on reports its Chief Executive Rosemary Agnew is to be recommended to msps to replace the current Scottish Information Commissioner Mr Kevin Dunion upon his demit of office in February of this year, and what Ms Agnew's appointment to the post (if confirmed by msps) will mean for freedom of information requests to the SLCC.”

A further question was put to the SLCC : “Does the SLCC have any comment on how the SLCC will cope with having to recruit a third Chief Executive in four years to the SLCC and the impact on the Commission's role of having three Chief Executives since 2008 ?“

The SLCC issued a blunt “no comment” to both questions.

Speaking to Diary of Injustice this morning, a legal insider said he was horrified someone with a record of refusing FOI requests could be appointed to the role of Scotland’s FOI Commissioner.

He said : “Unless Ms Agnew has significantly changed her attitudes towards FOI, I doubt a candidate with at least five rebukes for handling FOI requests who is coming from an organisation which has a history of waging a war of attrition against Freedom of Information laws, can fulfil the requirement for maintaining & strengthening Freedom of Information legislation in Scotland.”

A leading political observer, commenting on the SPCB’s appointment agreed it looked like the Scottish Parliament were about to choose someone who might not continue Mr Dunion’s work of expanding & upholding Freedom of Information compliance in Scotland.

Ms Agnew’s suitability for the role of FOI Commissioner has also been questioned today after it was claimed decisions taken by her in her role as Chief Executive of the Scottish legal Complaints Commission to refuse to monitor consumers individual claims made against the Law Society of Scotland's Master Policy which have left some clients penniless, in a state of financial ruin and facing years of hardship, ill health and hounding by firms of crooked lawyers. The claims were made by clients who have approached the SLCC to request the law complaints quango monitor individual claims made against the Master Policy after being financially ruined by "crooked lawyers" & corrupt Scottish law firms who took their clients for a ride through the courts system.

The SLCC has powers to monitor the Master Policy under Section 39 of the Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 although its staff & board have sought on several occasions to loosely interpreted the terms of the law in an apparent attempt to avoid becoming involved in matters which have already led to confrontation between the SLCC, Law Society of Scotland & Marsh UK, the UK subsidiary of the convicted US Insurers Marsh McLennan Companies who are brokers of the Master Policy which is backed by insurers such as Royal Sun Alliance PLC.

Letter reveals SLCC’s latest Chief Executive told client they will not monitor claims made against crooked lawyers. In a letter released to Diary of Injustice, the SLCC’s Chief Executive, Rosemary Agnew refused to become involved in monitoring claims to the Master Policy. Ms Agnew wrote : “..it is not within the SLCC’s remit to monitor individual claims made under the Master Policy. Under the Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 (Section 39), the SLCC may monitor the overall effectiveness of guarantee funds, etc and professional indemnity arrangements put in place by the Law Society of Scotland for its members (ie the Master Policy). This power does not extend to our active involvement in the way in which individual indemnity claims are being dealt with by the insurers.”

A succession of additional letters from Ms Agnew to claimants have been released to Diary of Injustice, showing Ms Agnew refused requests by beleaguered clients to monitor their claims to the Master Policy.

Speaking at the time of Ms Agnew’s blunt refusals to monitor claims to the Master Policy, Consumer Focus Scotland sided with clients, and supported calls for consumers to be able to submit concerns about the Master Policy on their cases directly to the SLCC. A spokesperson for Consumer Focus Scotland said : “After concerns were raised with the SCC (Scottish Consumer Council) regarding the operation of the master policy, the SCC argued that the SLCC should be given power to monitor the effectiveness of the master policy in the Legal Services and Legal Profession (Scotland) Act 2007, and we were very pleased when this was included.”

The spokesperson continued : “It has always been our understanding that the intention behind section 39 of the Act was that the SLCC would monitor the overall effectiveness of the operation of the Master Policy, rather than monitoring individual claims. It does seem to us, however, that in order to monitor the overall effectiveness of the Master Policy, the SLCC must be able to consider evidence about the way in which individual claims to the Policy have been handled. It is therefore important that consumers are able to submit concerns about the way their claim has been handled to the SLCC, to assist the SLCC to undertake this function effectively.”

Ms Agnew’s refusal to involve the SLCC in actively monitoring individual claims to the Master Policy has come of something as a shock to many legal observers, who keenly anticipated the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission would end the world of corruption surrounding damages claims made against rogue solicitors & law firms by financially ruined clients, particularly after an independent report commissioned by the SLCC found the Law Society of Scotland & the Master Policy insurers had covered up the fact clients had committed suicide after being let down by law firms who were supposedly representing their claims against the Master Policy in the Court of Session, itself well known as a cosy lawyer only club unwilling to rule against the profession. Diary of Injustice reported on the report into the Master Policy here : Suicides, illness, broken families and ruined clients reveal true cost of Law Society's Master Policy which 'allows solicitors to sleep at night'

A solicitor speaking to Diary of Injustice this afternoon said “The SLCC lacked any credibility on the news it was about to lose yet another Chief Executive.” He went onto claim the SLCC “has little consumer confidence, is not trusted by the legal profession, appears to hold no continuity and should be scrapped.”

BACKGROUND : ROSEMARY AGNEW, SLCC CHIEF EXECUTIVE

SLCC Chief Executive Eileen Masterman (foreground) received Scottish Government approved pay off after lawyers intervened says auditor report. RUMOURS that Eileen Masterman, the former Chief Executive of the much derided Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC), received a SUBSTANTIAL PAY OFF after she resigned on grounds of “ill health”, after serving less than SEVEN MONTHS in the £80,000 a year, £1,350 plus, a week job have now been confirmed with the publication of a “Key Memorandum Issues” document prepared for the SLCC by the Edinburgh offices of auditors Grant Thornton. Grant Thornton were called in to replace the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) as the SLCC’s auditors, after SLAB were abruptly sacked from their auditing role by the SLCC’s board in 2009 after much bickering over the Legal Aid Board’s scrutiny of the failed law complaints quango.

Today’s Daily Record report :

STOP SECRET : Revealed: Government, police & local councils all among public bodies who flouted anti-secrecy laws

Jan 9 2012 Exclusive by Chris Musson

THE public bodies who fought tooth-and-nail to keep secrets from you are today exposed by the Record. The Government, police forces, councils and taxpayer-funded quangos all flouted anti-secrecy laws by knocking back legitimate Freedom of Information requests. They were forced to back down by Kevin Dunion, Scotland’s first Information Commissioner, who ruled in favour of the public 359 times since the new rules came into force in January 2005.

The worst offenders were the Scottish Government, who wrongly refused to disclose information 78 times over the last seven years. However, they also received the highest number of requests of any public body. Second on the league of shame were Edinburgh City Council, with 22 decisions against them. Third were Glasgow City Council with 17 decisions fully in favour of applicants, and fourth were Scottish Water with 15.

Among legitimate requests knocked back were details on the numbers of sex offenders in various areas – with Strathclyde Police, Grampian Police and Northern Constabulary all falling foul. Surgical mortality rates were also wrongly withheld by the NHS, as were details of public payments to firms of private consultants.

Dunion and his office made 1336 decisions to December 14, 2011. As well as the 359 fully in favour of the person appealing a refusal, 450 were partly in their favour.

A person who gets knocked back for an FoI request must first appeal to the public body before going to the Information Commissioner. It is time-consuming, meaning many members of the public give up, even if they have a good case.

But public bodies often fight to the bitter end, despite decisions being overturned by the Information Commissioner. Public bodies’ disregard for the laws is still widespread seven years on – and even appears to be growing. Last year saw the highest total for successful appeals by the public – on 85 occasions.

Dunion, who grew up in Fife and Clackmannanshire and was the rector of St Andrews University until 2011, steps down next month from the post of Information Commissioner he has held since 2003. Tomorrow, he will present a special report to the Scottish Parliament on his time in the job, and will urge the Government to “safeguard and strengthen” openness from public bodies.

Yesterday, he told the Record he was confident Scotland had “made a success” of freedom of information since 2005. He added said: “Public awareness of Freedom of Information is at an all-time high. Public authorities are responding to requests and information is being disclosed which would otherwise have remained secret. “We know much more about contracts and expenses, deaths in hospitals and local crime rates because of FoI. “Of course, there are disputes and failings which is why the free right of appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner is so important.”

He said most appeals were from members of the public, adding: “In the majority of my decisions I have found, at least in part, that the appeal was justified.”

TIP FORCED TO DISCLOSE

A WOMAN tipped to be Scotland's new anti-secrecy tsar has had a string of rulings made against her by the man she could replace.

Agnew did not respond to requests for a comment.

Appeal lodged against High Court’s takedown of Solicitors from Hell, ICO tells Law Society CEO Des Hudson ‘to live with consumer criticism of lawyers’

2012-01-05T14:45:00.002Z

Appeal lodged against High Court’s decision to remove Solicitors from Hell website from internet. SOLICITORS FROM HELL (SfH) is back in the news for 2012 after its owner, Rick Kordowski revealed he has filed an appeal against the recent High Court decision by Hon. Mr Justice Michael Tugendhat in the case of The Law Society, Hine Solicitors & Kevin McGrath & a cast of others v Rick Kordowski to grant the Law Society of England & Wales its injunction for the removal of the now well known Solicitors from Hell website which allowed clients & consumers to rate their solicitors & post reviews of their experiences with law firms & lawyers from across the UK.

Diary of Injustice reported on the legal action taken by the Law Society of England & Wales against Mr Kordowski and his website: ‘SolicitorsFromHELL.co.uk’ in November 2011, here : Solicitors From Hell removed from internet as UK High Court grants injunction to Law Society of England & Wales to censor client reviews of lawyers

The injunction, secured by Hugh Tomlinson QC and Sara Mansoori of Matrix Chambers as announced on Brett Wilson LLP’s blog, followed a successful application for judgment in default against Mr Rick Kordowski, the owner of the SfH website. The full judgement in the case can be read here : The Law Society, Hine Solicitors & Kevin McGrath v Rick Kordowski

Speaking late last week, Mr Kordowski said : “I was tempted to leave it and let it go down in history as one of the most ‘archaic’ judgments of all time. However, now that the Law Society of England and Wales have been served with the necessary paperwork, this judgment and order is in the process of being formally appealed.”

Mr Kordowski said : “The individuals who accompanied the Law Society on the claim against me failed to follow the Pre-Action protocol code. I am also perplexed to why these individuals had not (and still haven’t) contact me to ask who the authors of the words complained about were.”

Mr Kordowski has also indicated he will take the case all the way to the European Court if he loses the latest appeal in the UK Courts. Mr Kordowski said that in the event of his appeal being turned down by the higher appeal court here in the UK, with the help of legal advice provided by the mainstream media, he will take this case to the European Court in Strasbourg where he feels he will receive a fairer hearing and a more ‘balanced’ approach to the matter.

Lawyers & their grudges ? Law Society Chief Executive Desmond Hudson Des Hudson the £400K-A-YEAR Chief Executive of the Law Society of England & Wales who pursued the SfH website through the courts at huge cost to members, commented in a Press Release at the time of the High Court’s decision : “This website has served simply as a vehicle for pursuing personal grudges and vendettas against conscientious and reputable firms and legal professionals. Far from being of any help to consumers, it has been a danger. Some excellent firms have been listed on the website, and exclusion from the site has more often than not been a matter of whether a firm has been prepared to pay a fee to have the listing removed. I feared the website was directing people in real need of help away from professionals best placed to assist them.”

However, it has come to light Mr Hudson and the Law Society received little joy from their attempts to involve the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in their battle to remove the Solicitors from Hell website from the internet, raising further questions over the High Court’s decision to side with the vested interests of the legal profession out to block their own client’s right of free speech to rate and review the service provided by UK based lawyers & law firms.

Diary of Injustice has been passed a copy of a letter from the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham to Desmond Hudson, CEO of the Law Society. The Information Commissioner’s office confirmed the letter as genuine and said they had no objection to it being published in full. The letter can be downloaded HERE

Law Society is told to live with criticism and ‘censoring online comments against lawyers is not a job for the Information Commissioner’ In the letter, Christopher Graham, the Information Commissioner said to the Law Society’s Chief Executive, Mr Hudson : “We have looked at the website and agree that some of the content that individuals have posted about solicitors is highly offensive, although some of it does strike me as representing, on the face of it, credible accounts of the experiences that some individuals may have had of their solicitors.The inclusion of the ‘domestic purposes exemption in the Data Protection Act (s.36) is intended to balance the individual’s right to respect for his/her private life with the right to freedom of expression. These rights are equally important and I am strongly of the view that this is not the purpose of the DPA to regulate an individual’s right to freedom of expression – even where the individual uses a third party website, rather than his own facilities, to exercise this.”

“The situation would clearly be impossible where the Information Commissioner to be expected to rule on what it is acceptable for one individual to say about another, be that a solicitor or another individual. This is not what my Office is established to do. This is particularly the case where other legal remedies are available – for example, the law of libel or incitement.”

“There is still a considerable lack of certainty concerning the extent to which website operators are legally responsible for the content they host, Although solicitorsfromhell/Mr Kordowski may well be a data controller, and is indeed registered as such, the instigators of the website;’s content are generally private individuals expressing their own views. Their activity attracts the s.36 exemption, which emanates ultimately from Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”

“In giving due weight to freedom of expression in cases like this we have to accept that enforcing the data protection principles in respect of the activities of the website owner is likely to entail a disproportionate level of interference with the rights of the contributors, however unpleasant their contributions may be.”

“We also have to accept that contributing to, and using, ratings and customer feedback sites – of variable quality – has become an established part of consumers’ online behaviour.”

Others also question the High Court’s decision to side with the Law Society and grant the removal of the Solicitors from Hell website from public view after it became known the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) is also to embark on a similar strategy of naming & shaming solicitors & law firms who fail their clients, a fact reported by Diary of Injustice in early November 2011, here : Scots to be ‘kept in dark’ on details of crooked lawyers while Legal Ombudsman’s ‘naming & shaming’ policy ‘will protect’ consumers in England & Wales.

So, the battle is on to restore Solicitors from Hell to the internet, and thus restore the right of consumers across the country to freely comment on and rate the services of their legal representatives, just like all other consumers purchasing products & services across the land.

In the meantime new websites have emerged to allow clients to post their opinions about lawyers :

COWBOYSOLICITORS.COM, a new website to allow consumers to rate their lawyer online. While the battle for Solicitors From Hell looks set to continue all the way to the European Courts, a host of new websites offering consumers the chance to air their views of how they were served by their legal representatives have emerged, the latest one being COWBOYSOLICITORS.COM. The new website, which is free to become a member of, states Solicitors have ruled the roost for far too long, the law society is completely bias against any complaints. The truth is that many UK legal practices are filth ridden and need exposing. Become a free member and start shaming your solicitor within minutes. Manage all listings from your personalized dashboard.

Solicitors from Hell 2 has returned to replace the original Solicitors from Hell website. The new Solicitors from Hell 2 website which is registered in the USA, and is thus outwith the reach of UK Libel laws, replaces the now censored Solicitors from Hell. As before, clients can rate their solicitors and document their experiences whether good or bad although this time, it may be more difficult for the Law Society to act. The new website states : Solicitors From Hell 2 will allow people to upload articles about Solicitors from within the UK or anywhere else in the world this will be done automatically & free of charge. Should a complaint arise we will require evidence to substantiate your complaint. or the removal of the offending post or words will take place. This will be at the sole discretion of Solicitors From Hell 2 editors. Further should anyone claim that any item is defamatory and can prove the information wrong then the post will be removed free of charge.

So those of you looking for an opportunity to name & shame your poorly performing or even crooked lawyer, there is now even more choice to do so, courtesy of the Law Society’s attack on UK consumers right of free speech.

Information Commissioner’s Office clarifies FOI law on ‘official business’ information held in private email accounts, texts. Scotland to follow ?

2012-01-03T13:55:00.002Z

Sneaky exchanges between civil servants, politicians & those in public bodies via private or secret email accounts can be revealed through FOI. SNEAKS in Government, Local Government public bodies & public services who use private email facilities to discuss official business in attempts to avoid the information leaking out through Freedom of Information legislation have now been told in no uncertain terms by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) that information concerning official business held in private email accounts is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

However, as the Guardian newspaper reports, the ICO’s move which brings Ministers private emails and text messages within the scope of FOI has angered politicians at Westminster who are now fearful Freedom of Information laws appear (to them) to be allowing too much openness following the latest ruling. The Guardian goes onto report “The chairman of the public administration committee, Bernard Jenkin, is understood to be considering a select committee inquiry next year in the wake of the recent ruling by Christopher Graham, the information commissioner.”

Currently there is no clarification from the Scottish Information Commissioner on how the ICO’s ruling on private emails affects FOI in Scotland, however, as they say, there’s no time like the present to test it out, particularly as it appears the practice of using private, secret, & throw-away email accounts by civil servants & certain ‘advisers’ to the Scottish Government appears widespread…

Commenting on the ICO ruling, Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said: “It should not come as a surprise to public authorities to have the clarification that information held in private email accounts can be subject to Freedom of Information law if it relates to official business. This has always been the case – the Act covers all recorded information in any form.

Mr Graham continued : “It came to light in September that this is a somewhat misunderstood aspect of the law and that further clarification was needed. That’s why we’ve issued new guidance today with two key aims – first, to give public authorities an authoritative steer on the factors that should be considered before deciding whether a search of private email accounts is necessary when responding to a request under the Act. Second, to set out the procedures that should generally be in place to respond to requests. Clearly, the need to search private email accounts should be a rare occurrence; therefore, we do not expect this advice to increase the burden on public authorities.”

Key points set out in the guidance include:

Where a public authority has decided that a relevant individual’s email account may include official information which falls within the scope of the request and is not held elsewhere, it will need to ask that individual to search their account.

Where people are asked to check private email accounts, there should be a record of the action taken. The public authority needs to be able to demonstrate, if required, that appropriate searches have taken place.

Although the main emphasis of the guidance is on official information held in private email accounts, public authorities should be aware that the law covers information recorded in any form

Public authorities should remind staff that deleting or concealing information with the intention of preventing its disclosure following receipt of a request is a criminal offence under section 77 of the Act.

It is accepted that, in certain circumstances, it may be necessary to use private email for public authority business. There should be a policy which clearly states that in these cases an authority email address should be copied in to ensure the completeness of the authority’s records.

Mr Graham continued: “As part of our work on understanding more generally how FOI handling works across government, we conducted a good practice visit at the Department for Education. We’ve today published the findings of that visit and are now keen to carry out similar visits to other Whitehall departments. Work on specific complaints made to the Commissioner about the Department of Education’s handling of individual FOI requests is still ongoing. We hope to issue our decisions on these cases early in the New Year.”

So, next time readers & FOI’ers do requests to the Scottish Government, local authorities, public bodies and so on, you may want to ask for any information contained in private email facilities used by those in the relevant organisations which relate to the business or subject access of your FOI request…

A Diary of Injustice for 2012

2012-01-02T11:25:00.002Z

Changes to Diary of Injustice for 2012. DIARY OF INJUSTICE during 2012 and for the foreseeable future, will be written & managed by journalists in consultation with Peter Cherbi, the independent law journalist who started this site in January 2006 with an aim to report on injustice in Scotland and the justice system from the point of view of consumers. If you have a story relating to a legal problem you have with the justice system, your solicitor or something you feel should be reported in the media, please send your details to scottishlawreporters@gmail.com upon which someone from the team will get back to you. If readers want an article published, original documentation relating to your case will have to be provided to back up any statements.

Readers should note the web address of Diary of Injustice will remain unchanged, due to the volume of information on the site containing links to previous articles and other information.

2012 New Year message from Scotland : Become the hunter and not the hunted. Stand your ground & rise up to those who cause you injustice

2012-01-01T13:00:00.003Z

Happy New Year 2012 to readers & campaigners fighting injustice in Scotland & around the world. EVER EAGER to stand up for itself and survive is the garden visitor which has been picking off the habitually greedy fat pigeons that eat all the food put out for the smaller birds to survive. Of course, you just know the visiting raptor might well have a few of those small birds if things get tough but the fat greedy pigeons who never miss a chance to take everything stand out – they are much easier to spot, a bit like those in the community who hide behind a cloak of respectability, surviving by taking over other people’s livelihoods, possessions, splitting up families, even taking life itself, and ultimately making death a business of personal plunder, for profit to pay for their own lifestyles. You all know who I mean.

During last year, 2011, I received many contacts from people who were depressed, at their wits end, some at the end of their life and all because of the trust they had placed in politicians, public servants, banks, doctors, self-branded ‘financial experts’, debt advisers, and of course, members of the legal profession who were brought in to resolve legal problems yet ended up taking more from their clients than they put in.

Some people spoke of committing suicide because of what had been done to them, yet no help was on offer and everyone in authority turned a blind eye to their predicament. Some were at the end of their tether over the lack of help they were receiving from people elected to office who are supposed to be ‘public servants’ and a growing number of people felt there was no hope left to them, that life was not worth living after solicitors and the legal profession had ripped through their lives leaving a path of destruction it is simply not possible to recover from.

For those of you in Scotland and around the world whose lives are held hostage to injustice, whether the injustice is at the hands and actions of prejudicial self-serving & self-motivated politicians, an unjust, corrupt justice system and those within it, or at the brutal hands of a profession or vested interests, make 2012 a turning point by doing something about it. Take back your lives and make a start by publishing your story of injustice, naming & shaming those who commit these crimes and injustice against you. Protest if you like, as it is your right to do, tell your fellow man and do whatever you can all within the law. Do something, don't do nothing.

Wherever you are, make 2012 your spring by breaking out of the perpetual winter handed to you by those who clothe their naked villainy with old odd ends, stolen forth from you by unjust writ, and seem a saint when most they play the devil.

SLCC board members depart, taking £1/2million for 3 years of anti-consumer chaos, a pocketful of upheld complaints & no prosecutions of dodgy lawyers

2011-12-30T13:04:00.006Z

Original SLCC board members exit after a disastrous 3 years of complaints handling & not one single prosecution of a crooked lawyer. AFTER raking in over HALF A MILLION POUNDS in expenses claims & remuneration, the seven original remaining board members of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) comprising two former senior Police Officers, a clutch of lawyers, and quangocrats who were personally appointed by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill in early 2008 to front what quickly became an anti-client law complaints quango made more famous for booze fuelled anti-consumer rants than prosecuting crooked lawyers, will finally depart their lucrative £212 a day plus expenses appointments tomorrow on the expiry of their controversial term of office, leaving behind little or no evidence of improvement of consumer protection against crooked Scottish lawyers in the past three years.

The departure of former Lothian & Borders Chief Supt Douglas Watson, Dr Linda Pollock BSc, RGN, RMN, Dist Nursing, Diploma (Clinical Nursing), PhD, MBA, ex Deputy Chief Constable Tayside Police Ian Gordon OBE, QPM, LL.B (Hons), Law Professor Alan Paterson OBE, FRSE, David Smith (retired lawyer & husband of Court of Session judge Lady Smith), divorce lawyer Margaret Scanlan OBE & retired lawyer David Chaplin leaves a bitter legacy of feuds with the media, cover-ups against Freedom of Information laws, arguments over the SLCC’s mishandling of complaints against the Scottish legal profession and little evidence of any success against crooked lawyers in the past three years, all in stark comparison to the progress of the Legal Ombudsman for England & Wales (LeO) which has seemingly powered ahead on complaints cases, even laying plans to name & shame solicitors & law firms who abuse their clients. No such moves have been made by the SLCC who bitterly refuse to name & shame rogue Scottish lawyers.

During the term of the now departing board members, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has since 2007, raked in an average of £2.5 million a year from the legal profession in complaints levies (funded by hikes in solicitors fees taken from clients), and a whopping £2 million of taxpayers money from the Scottish Government.

However, the dreadful reality of the worst piece of theatre in Scots regulation is that despite the huge intake of money & effort, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has in the past three years, fully upheld only a handful of complaints against solicitors & law firms and has paid out staggeringly small amounts of compensation to victims of ‘crooked lawyers’ compared with how much consumers have lost to their legal representatives. In one case, a client of a rogue lawyer received a meagre £10 compensation award after falling victim to shoddy legal work. The SLCC also blew more than 1/4 million on legal fees to law firms, some of which are linked to its own board members, as reported by Diary of Injustice here : £10 compensation for victims of crooked lawyers while Scottish Legal Complaints Commission spend more than £1/4 MILLION on law firms & ‘legal advice’

To add to the regulation nightmare facing consumers of legal services in Scotland,, not one crooked lawyer has yet been prosecuted on the basis of any work carried out by the SLCC in the entire three years, a fact which even drew criticism from the Chairman of the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal as reported HERE.

The SLCC experienced a few of its own nightmares, as covered by Diary of Injustice over the past three years, where in particular, the former Chief Executive Eileen Masterman resigned on grounds of ill health, but not before negotiating via lawyers a payoff, reported here : HUSH & MONEY : Former SLCC law complaints Chief Executive Eileen Masterman received secret Scottish Government approved payoff in deal with lawyers

Secretive & anti-client SLCC became famous for censorship & battles over Freedom of Information requests.The failures of the SLCC over the past three years leaves an inescapable conclusion that over TWELVE MILLION POUNDS of public funds & fees gathered from clients of solicitors have gone down the drain on what is now obviously little more than a joint venture between the Law Society of Scotland & Scottish Government to shore up the Law Society’s influence & exclusive control over self-regulation of the legal profession in Scotland, leading to the SLCC’s continuing stitch-up of consumer complaints against rogue solicitors. In short, consumers have not benefited from the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. The Scottish Government, the Law Society of Scotland & the legal establishment have seen to that.

Diary of Injustice featured in an earlier article what it took to be a member of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s board : More ‘jobs for the boys’ than action on ‘crooked lawyers’ : What it takes to be a Board Member at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. As far as new appointments to the board of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission are concerned, reported by Diary of Injustice HERE, HERE & HERE no improvement in the hapless anti-client law complaints quango should be expected.

Read all about it : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission - The story so far

AND ITS GOODBYE FROM THEM (for now) :

Douglas Watson

• Former lay member of a Law Society of Scotland Committee dealing with Access to Legal Information. The role was unpaid.
• A cousin, Bruce Minto, is a partner in Dickson Minto, Solicitors.
• Formerly a Chief Superintendent with Lothian and Borders Police.

Dr Linda Pollock

• Executive Nursing Director (1989 -2006).
• Interim Board Nurse Director (2002-2003).
• Chief Nursing Officer’s Professional Advisor on nurse prescribing (2005-6).
• Past External Examiner with Robert Gordon’s University and Queen Margaret University.
• Research Honorary Fellow in the Social Science Faculty of Edinburgh University.
• Formerly, a part time nurse member of the Mental Welfare Commission (1997- 2005).
• Currently, working as a Primary Care Consultant, undertaking research work commissioned by the Queen’s Nursing Institute in Scotland.
• Registrant member of the Nursing and Midwifery Council Appointments Board.
• Member of the Royal College of Nursing.
• Dr Pollock has a track record of authorship and chapter contributions in professional books, and continues to write articles in nursing journals.
• Board Member of the Accounts Commission (from 1st October for three years).
• Chair to a UK-wide Advisory Board with Pain Concern (from Jan 2010).

Ian Gordon OBE, QPM, LL.B (Hons)

• Convener of the Standards Commission for Scotland (from 1 February 2010 for four years).

• Member of the Registration and Conduct Sub Committees of the Scottish Social Services Council. Appointed by the Council on 29 April 2010 for 3 years.
Payment from Scottish Social Services Council.
• Associate Professor in Policing for Charles Sturt University (Australia)
• Director (Trustee) of Blairgowrie and Rattray Regeneration Company (BARRC) Registered Charity – Not remunerated.
• Member of Rotary International
• Retired Deputy Chief Constable of Tayside Police.
• Formerly Chair of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS)
Professional Standards Business Area.
• Formerly Vice-Chair of ACPOS General Policing Business Area.

Margaret Scanlan

• Consultant, Russells Gibson McCaffrey, Solicitors.

• Member of the Law Society of Scotland and holder of current practising certificate.
• Husband is a senior partner Russells Gibson McCaffrey.
• Husband is a member of the Law Society of Scotland and holder of current practising certificate.
• Past Chair of the Family Law Association.
• Former member of the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

David Smith

• Member of the Law Society of Scotland.

• Former member/partner of Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP, Solicitors. Retired on 30/04/08.
• Non-Executive Director, Value and Income Trust Plc.
• Wife is a Senator of the College of Justice and a non practising member of the Faculty of Advocates.

David Chaplin

• Former member of Anderson Fyfe LLP, Solicitors. Retired on 30/04/08.

• Member of the Law Society of Scotland.
• Director and shareholder in Baliol Properties Limited.

Alan Paterson

• Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Professional Legal Studies at Strathclyde University.

• Research adviser to the Scottish Legal Aid Board.
• Member of the Law Society of Scotland.
• Professional contact with Guild & Guild, Solicitors and McCash & Hunter, LLP.

Going to court is like being taken to the cleaners ? Participate in the Review of Expenses and Funding of Civil Litigation in Scotland Consultation

2011-12-28T13:14:00.002Z

Taylor Review consultation on costs of justice aims to tackle widespread evidence that litigation in Scottish courts is expensive, exclusive & unproductive. GOING TO COURT is like being taken to the cleaners, whether its down to the fees of your own solicitors, the fees of the other side’s legal team or the court’s fees. No matter how you word the dreaded ‘access to justice’ equation, going to court in Scotland is a bit of a rip-off. There is no escaping the fact that justice, and access to it, is, with ample evidence, widely perceived to be the domain of the rich, vested interests, someone who can slip a judge a benefit on the side, or the ones who know how to bend legal aid rules to pick up public funds for taking on cases for convicted rapists, murderers & fraudsters which make the rest of the nation sick.

Put it this way, if you’ve ever had the feeling a serial child murderer stands a better chance of obtaining access to court & millions in taxpayer funded legal aid for a dispute over prison rights, as opposed to your own court case involving claim against a swindler who stole your investments, a lawyer who ruined a will or took your house, a medial professional who committed negligence or who caused a death in your family, or some other professional who, through their actions ruined your life and then kept on ruining your life in some kind of vendetta, you are in the right country. It all happens here, every week of every month of every year.

Those of you who attempt to pursue a case through Scotland’s antiquated “Victorian” court system to gain ‘justice’ simply end up joining a queue of thousands of people who walk in & out of Scotland’s revolving door courts system each year achieving nothing more than lining the pockets of the legal profession, the courts, & the judge who sits there on a £200K plus salary, managing an occasional grumble or mumble in some kind of inaudible verbal abortion more reminiscent of a silent horror movie, while frequently finding or ruling for the vested interests who his or her lordship dare not upset.

In an attempt to address the cost aspect of obtaining justice in Scotland’s Victorian civil courts, the Scottish Government’s Taylor Review of Expenses and Funding of Civil Litigation in Scotland has announced a consultation which readers and anyone with an interest in access to justice issues in Scotland should participate in. I also encourage anyone who does participate in the Taylor Review to ask their msp to participate. After all, you can bet your last penny the vested interests of the legal profession are participating in the consultation, and demanding costs be kept as they are, so justice can be delivered at great expense rather than being delivered on the cheap.

Heaven help Scotland’s greedy multi billion pound legal services rip-off industry if costs of going to court or conducting litigation were ever likely to be reduced …

The Taylor Review consultation paper is available to download here:

Consultation Paper (Word Document) 2253.5 kb

Consultation Paper (PDF Document) 856.85 kb

An announcement from the Taylor Review Team encourages participation in the consultation, stating : We hope that the consultation process will generate considerable debate and that you will feel able to respond to the questions that we pose. Please do not feel that you must respond to every question. There may be particular issues which interest you and you should feel free to limit your answers to such areas. If there are additional points that you wish to make that are not covered by the Consultation Paper then please feel free to do so.

You can find out more about the Taylor Review HERE and readers should note responses to the consultation are to be received by the review team no later than Friday 16 March 2012.

Review of Expenses and Funding of Civil Litigation in Scotland

STATEMENT BY SHERIFF PRINCIPAL TAYLOR

LAUNCH OF TAYLOR REVIEW CONSULTATION

In September 2009, the Scottish Civil Court's Review (SCCR) under the chairmanship of The Rt. Hon. Lord Gill presented its Report to the Scottish Government. I am pleased that the Scottish Government has responded so positively to the recommendations in the Report.

The Board of the SCCR knew that Lord Justice Jackson was undertaking a Review of Civil Litigation Costs in England and Wales and would be reporting in early 2010. Accordingly, the Board thought it would be prudent to await the outcome of LJ Jackson's Report before formulating recommendations on judicial expenses in this jurisdiction.

LJ Jackson reported in 2010 and the Westminster Government has responded to that Report. The Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill is presently making its way through the Westminster Parliament.

Earlier this year I was invited by the Scottish Government to chair a Review into the Expenses and Funding of Civil Litigation in Scotland. Part of my remit is to consult widely. Since the Review commenced, we have spoken to a number of people with an interest in the Scottish civil judicial process in order that we might identify those areas where it is thought that reform is necessary. We wrote to over 90 individuals and bodies seeking guidance on the issues upon which we should be consulting. I am also deeply indebted to the members of the Reference Group who have given of their time both generously and free of charge. Their contribution has been invaluable. This consultation document is the product of these discussions and responses. The responsibility for the content is, nonetheless, mine.

The consultation document covers a wide range of issues which have a significant impact on access to justice. Access to justice is a right and it has been said with some force that its absence is "an enemy of the rule of law". For example, we ask for views on whether access to justice would be improved if lawyers in Scotland were allowed to enter into agreements with clients whereby the lawyers could express their fee as a percentage of the damages recovered. We also give an opportunity for members of the public and lawyers alike to give their views on the desirability of referral fees which is an issue which has generated considerable interest south of the border.

It is a matter of chance that we embark upon consultation at a time when the Westminster Bill is being debated in the House of Lords. The Scottish Government recognises the importance of access to justice and has adopted a different approach from its English and Welsh counterparts. It does not intend to make major changes to the scope of legal aid even in these times of austerity. It would however wish legal aid to become "a funder of last resort."

I hope that there will be considerable debate generated by this document and that I will receive responses from as many sources as is possible. By so responding the Scottish public and professions will hopefully draw attention to all aspects of the issues contained in the consultation document. To assist the consultation process we propose to have public meetings in Aberdeen, Dumfries, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth. A wide range of responses should minimise the risk of there being unintended consequences arising out of the recommendations which will eventually be contained in my Report. I intend to report before the end of 2012.

Season’s Greetings to readers, injustice campaigners, and victims of injustice in Scotland & around the world

2011-12-24T14:47:00.002Z

Season’s Greetings from Diary of Injustice in Scotland. EARLIER this year, Scottish judge & Deputy President of the UK’s Supreme Court Lord Hope described Scotland's justice system as containing “a corrosive anti-English sentiment” adding that this “sentiment can be a real obstacle to progress”. Scotland’s justice system is exactly that, and much worse besides. Whether the case relate to criminal or civil law, there is ample evidence in the opinions, rulings, attitudes & activities of more than a few members of the Scottish judiciary to show that Scotland’s “Victorian” justice system and its courts serve themselves and the interests of vested interests before they serve justice.

Scotland’s courts have become corrosive, vindictive, people-hating places which regularly stamp upon anyone whose interests collide with vested interests of the professions, big business & the establishment. In short, ‘justice’ in Scotland is bought & paid for, long before you, the public, the litigant, even the party litigant, ever get a look-in.

As another year draws to a close on reporting the ins & outs and ups & downs of the Scots legal world, a year in which some will find themselves struggling against a bleak midwinter of injustice brought upon them by a justice system we are taught will protect us all, I’d like to wish all my readers, in Scotland & around the world, my colleagues in the media, all victims of injustice, all those who tirelessly fight against injustice or fight for consumer rights, & those inside the Scots legal profession I personally know who bravely serve their clients in the interests of justice rather than in the interests of others, Season’s Greetings, a Merry Christmas, and good luck for the New Year, 2012.

Scottish Legal Complaints Commission forced to publish compensation data in annual report, reveals only 7 cases ‘fully upheld’ against ‘dodgy lawyers’

2011-12-20T20:00:00.006Z

Report reveals Scottish Legal Complaints Commission only fully upheld SEVEN complaints against crooked lawyers in 2010-2011. CONSIDERABLE media scrutiny of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) has forced Scotland’s notoriously anti-consumer law complaints regulator to finally publish client compensation data for the first time in its three year existence. The figures released by the SLCC in its latest annual report for 2011 show that up to £2,061 has been awarded to clients during the SLCC’s investigation of complaints and in one case, an award of up to £9,261 after the SLCC had upheld a complaint. The annual report also reveals the SLCC received 2,598 enquiries and 1,090 complaints made by members of the public against ‘crooked lawyers’ to add to the 274 in hand at the start of the year, yet the ‘independent’ SLCC admits it only managed to fully uphold a meagre SEVEN COMPLAINTS (out of 88) against ‘crooked lawyers’ in the past year – six more than the ONE single complaint it fully upheld last year.

The SLCC’s latest annual report for 2011 reports that of the 1,090 complaints received by the £1.8 MILLION POUND cash-in-the-bank-happy Scottish Legal Complaints Commission this year, 503 complaints were ruled ineligible for investigation despite protests from many clients over the handling of their apparently ‘ineligible’ cases while 81 conduct complaints were referred to the Law Society of Scotland and 4 complaints were referred to the Faculty of Advocates for investigation. Of the remaining, 210 complaints were dealt with and closed by the SLCC, and 566 were still in hand at the year end, including 290 awaiting a decision on eligibility.

The most common reasons for a complaint being declared ineligible were that it was frivolous, vexatious or totally without merit (160 cases), or because the complaint was out of time (146 cases), the limit normally being one year from when the professional relationship ended. Some cases also continued to be referred to the professional bodies under the transitional arrangements.

Fifty seven complaints were resolved by mediation, and one was withdrawn. A further 42 complaints were resolved by report or conciliation at the complaint investigation stage, and 22 more were withdrawn. In six of the cases, clients were awarded an abatement of fees ranging from £200-£2,000 with an average payout of £893, and in 13 cases a payment of compensation was awarded to the client, ranging from £40-£2,061 with an average payout of £517. Total amounts awarded to clients at the investigation stage of complaints were £5,356 for abatement of fees and £6,723 in compensation awards.

However, mediation has its own dangers, as it appears law firms who are involved in disputes with multiple clients have used the mediation service to escape any determinations in complaints, and with the SLCC apparently not collating data on whether the same ‘crooked lawyers’ keep appearing at mediation hearings, the mediation system may well be doing more harm than good for consumer protection.

The SLCC only managed to fully uphold a total of 7 complaints in the last year despite significant numbers of complaints made by the public against lawyers. A further 88 complaints progressed to the formal determination stage (where the SLCC is forced to make a decision on the complaint), of which ONLY SEVEN COMPLAINTS were upheld in full during the entire year, while 20 complaints were partly upheld, with the remaining 61 complaints not upheld. A small number of 26 cases from the 88 complaints required the practitioner to refund or abate fees and/or pay the complainer compensation (some required both). Awards made to clients at the determination stage showed the same range of fee abatements, with an average payout of £650, and compensation payments between £75 and £9,261 with an average payout of £979.

The total amount awarded to clients at determination stage for the last year was £4,550 for abatement of fees and £25,446 in compensation awards. However, the statistics come with a large caveat, as the compensation award figures now published by the SLCC do not document or reflect the actual quantum of exactly how much money clients believe they have actually lost as a result of their solicitor’s actions in the cases where compensation awards were made.

It should also be noted no compensation award figures have yet been published for 2008-2009 & 2009-2010 and the total amounts paid so far in 2010-2011 which appear on the low side of expectations, dwarf the staggering costs of running the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission along with its lavish Central Edinburgh offices & generous remuneration packages of up to £312 a day for board members who between them have claimed up to £160,000 a year for the three years the SLCC has existed.

SLCC Chief Executive Rosemary Agnew denied journalists access to compensation data amid false promises of early publication. Diary of Injustice had requested the compensation award figures for the last three years via Freedom of Information legislation in July 2011. However, the SLCC’s current Chief Executive, Rosemary Agnew refused to release the data, branding the request as “vexatious”. Ms Agnew went onto claim the compensation data was to be published within 12 weeks of the July request, however no publication was made and the Scottish Information Commissioner Mr Kevin Dunion found the SLCC had mishandled FOI requests for the data. A second FOI request after Mr Dunion’s investigation was also refused by the SLCC, who have now published only the compensation data for the last financial year available.

You can read more about the SLCC’s refusal to hand over the compensation data in response to FOI requests and the Scottish Information Commissioner's investigation, here : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission refuse to publish details of ‘loose change’ client compensation as board & staff live it up on YOUR millions and here : SCROOGE’D : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission buries ‘bad news’ annual report at Christmas, again refuses to release ‘compensation to clients’ data

A legal insider speaking to Diary of Injustice today explained the reluctance of the SLCC to publish client compensation data He claimed : “I think the SLCC have avoided publicising compensation figures in previous annual reports due to worries that if the amounts were published it may encourage more clients to make complaints & compensation claims in the hope they could recover their losses via the SLCC instead of pursuing complicated compensation claims against their solicitors via the Law Society of Scotland’s Master Policy.” which as we all now know holds little chance of success for members of the public making claims made against negligent or crooked lawyers via the client hating Scottish courts.

There is also a suggestion a deliberate decision was taken not to collect or retain data on compensation awarded to clients in previous years, a claim now being investigated by Diary of Injustice.

Breakdown of complaints by subject handled by the SLCC in 2010-2011. The Commission also reports that it dealt with 50% of complaints within 100 working days, 85% within 200, and 95% within 300. The most common categories of complaints for the year were residential conveyancing (22%), litigation and family law (15% each), and executries, wills and trusts (12%), among others. Other categories of complaints running at around 2% per subject of the total numbers of complaints received by the SLCC were Housing, Landlord and Tenant, Financial Services - Other, Bankruptcy and Insolvency, Business Category, Commercial and Company Law Financial Services - Endowment Policies, Mental Health, Planning and Compulsory Purchase, Child Law, Consumer Law, Welfare Benefits, Agricultural Law, Negligence, & Taxation.

The annual report also reveals that the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission managed to spend less money than budgeted, with actual expenditure of £2,408,000, against a budget of £2,839,000 and income of £2,232,000, giving a deficit on the year of £175,000. The Commission's reserves at the year end stood at £1,816,000 (down from £2,025,000 the year before), of which £1m has been earmarked to be gifted back to lawyers to underwrite the general levy in 2011-12.

Regarding the TWO MILLION POUNDS of taxpayer funds spent by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill’s Justice department on the SLCC’s start up costs & lavish perks handed out to board members, not one single penny has been returned by the SLCC to public coffers despite calls for the money to be repaid so it can be better used in other areas of public services.

Jane Irvine, Chair of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. Introducing the report, the chair, Jane Irvine, said it had been a year of "significant progress" for the Commission. She was keen that the SLCC should "start saying more" to encourage the profession to learn from complaints, but commented: "we have decided to be cautious about drawing conclusions from the limited information we hold; including statistics regarding numbers and types of complaints coming to us. It is not sensible to draw inferences from only two and a half years of limited information about a profession as complex as the Scottish legal profession".

Ms Irvine, who at one point also supported making the Law Society of Scotland compliant with Freedom of Information legislation, also claimed the SLCC was continuing to "lobby the Scottish Government for changes to the Act to allow our complaint handling to become more efficient and user friendly" while in opposing circles, the Law Society of Scotland continues to lobby the Scottish Government at every chance to tone down what few powers the SLCC has, along with ensuring the SLCC refrains from protecting consumers against ‘crooked lawyers’.

Yet with only SEVEN complaints fully upheld in a single year, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has a long way to go before it can begin to be trusted to regulate Scotland’s increasingly corrupt legal services market, where client funds are often seen as easy meat by solicitors out to make a quick kill and an easy get-away from any repercussions via lawyer biased regulators such as the SLCC & Law Society of Scotland.

Crown Office ‘Bonus Culture’ delivers no justice bonus for Scotland as more than £1/2 Million is handed out in perks to Lord Advocate’s staff

2011-12-19T14:08:00.007Z

Investigation reveals Scotland’s Crown Office has been over-eager to get in on the bankers bonus culture while crime fighting suffers. AS major parts of Scotland’s criminal & civil justice system descend into farce, with trials involving charges for breach of the peace up to attempted murder & fraud being abandoned on an almost daily basis, suspects accused of even the most serious offences being allowed bail, refusals or failures to prosecute instances of racially motivated crimes, sexual assaults & high profile failures on alleged sectarian offences & criticisms from the judiciary over the state of the courts, an investigation has revealed prosecutors & other employees at Scotland’s much criticised & failing Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) are benefiting from the bankers style bonus culture to the tune of HALF A MILLION POUNDS A YEAR, according to figures obtained from the Crown Office under Freedom of Information laws.

Crown Office staff appear more focussed on bonus culture than taking cases to trial with enough evidence in Scotland’s courts. The figures, reported in the Sunday Mail newspaper reveals that the Crown Office, under the current Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, which costs taxpayers a staggering ONE HUNDRED & EIGHT MILLION POUNDS A YEAR has been dishing out bonuses of up to TWENTY THOUSAND POUNDS at a time to its senior employees and that bonuses of FOUR to EIGHT THOUSAND POUNDS are commonplace among higher end staff while others at the Crown Office have to make do with much smaller bonuses of £500 - £1,000 a year. These revelations come at a time when prosecutors have been blaming the failure of over a thousand cases on the infamous Cadder v HMA ruling which saw the right to legal representation while being interrogated by Police brought into Scots law for the first time after a UK Supreme Court ruling which itself was castigated by senior politicians including the Justice Secretary & First Minister for alleged interference in the Scottish justice system.

Yet as the ink was barely dry on the release of the Crown Office’ bonus culture statistics, a Scottish Government insider has since come forward to Diary of Injustice this morning, admitting that “had it not been for the massive public sector finance cuts caused by the recession, the bonuses paid to Crown Office employees would have been significantly higher than half a million.”

Diary of Injustice recently reported in late October on arguments within the Crown Office over case backlogs & lost prosecutions, which culminated in the Lord Advocate attempting to refute claims from his own staff they were short of money and not enough in number to tackle crime : Lord Advocate tells Holyrood his own Fiscals are wrong over claims of case backlog & ‘stress’ as £108 million pours into failing Crown Office

In the wake of the latest revelations of a self serving Crown Office, there are growing numbers of Scots who feel the Crown Office has become an unaccountable public body which is out of control and in need of significant reform after being hit by constant scandals over collapsed high profile cases, corruption and allegations of institutional racism and even sectarianism amongst its employees.

Earlier this year questions were raised over the impartiality of the Crown Office in connection with prosecutions against the legal profession when investigations by Diary of Injustice & the Sunday Mail newspaper revealed the Crown Office REFUSED to prosecute FOURTEEN solicitors for legal aid fraud involving huge sums of public money. An additional investigation by Diary of Injustice revealed one of the alleged fraudsters who the Crown Office refused to prosecute, was married to a Procurator Fiscal.

And in what must be one of the most staggering wastes of resources many have seen from the Crown Office for a long time, around HALF A MILLION POUNDS has been spent by COPFS and a variety of other justice connected public bodies including several Police Forces on one single Breach of the Peace trial against an anti-abuse campaigner, as reported on Scottish Law Reporter here : The £1/2 Million Breach of the Peace charge, 13 hearings, 15,000 travel miles, Cross Border Police seizures, surveillance & a former Lord Advocate

The Sunday Mail reports on the bonus culture at the Crown Office ;

WHAT PRICE JUSTICE ? Crown Office staff net £580k in bonus payments in just two years

Dec 18 2011 Exclusive by Russell Findlay, Sunday Mail

STAFF at the Crown Office have pocketed bonus payments of more than £580,000 in just two years, we can reveal. Two years ago, 419 workers shared payouts totalling £326,844, while 518 were handed £253,330 for 2010-11.

The bonus culture in Scotland's prosecution service can be revealed days after a sheriff claimed underfunding was hampering justice. The Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service - headed by Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland - has an annual budget of £108million, with £69million of that on staff costs. Bonuses were paid out to around a quarter of the 1650 employees.

Yesterday, MSP Sandra White said: "These public sector workers are paid to do a job - good performance should be in-built, not an added bonus. I would like to know why bonuses were paid, especially given so many high-profile Crown Office failings in recent years."

The Crown Office recently admitted the number of rape cases being prosecuted has dropped. They blamed the fallout from the Cadder ruling, when police interviews without lawyers present threw more than a 1000 cases into doubt. Last week, Dundee Sheriff Richard Davidson hit out at the lack of cash to run jury trials in the city. He revealed that cases were forced into adjournment due to funding problems. We also revealed that the Crown have failed to prosecute any of the 14 lawyers reported for alleged Legal Aid fraud.

Legal reform campaigner Peter Cherbi said: "It hardly seems appropriate that Crown Office staff are being paid bonuses. " The Crown Office say that bonuses are "based on performance levels attained and are made as part of the appraisal process".

A spokesman added: "No bonuses are being paid in 2011-12 and there are no plans to do so in future."

Law Society demand Justice Secretary MacAskill intervene over SLCC report claiming ‘improper’ influences in Guarantee Fund client claims

2011-12-18T17:07:00.004Z

Bully required, Urgent : Law Society of Scotland demand Justice Secretary intervene in SLCC ‘Guarantee Fund’ row. FIDDLING & MEDDLING by Law Society of Scotland officials in financial damages claims to the Scottish Solicitors Guarantee Fund made by clients who have been financially ruined by their ‘crooked lawyers’ have prompted the Law Society of Scotland to issue a stern rejection of statements made in the latest annual report of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission for 2011, published Friday, that the outcome of compensation claims made by clients to the Guarantee Fund are influenced “by factors other than the merits of the claims” such as corruption, intervention by Law Society officials to halt claims going ahead, and an institutional prejudice against consumers trying to recover money stolen by Scottish solicitors.

The Law Society is ‘so upset’ by the allegations, they have now called in Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to ~~bully~~ ‘clarify’ the SLCC into withdrawing the claims.

Claiming the obvious L Law Society Guarantee Fund is crooked, dishonest and claims are fiddled. The damaging claims made in the latest annual report of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) which have prompted the row between the two legal complaints regulators, state : "There is a statistical relationship between the number and total value of the claims made on the fund in the same year as an individual claim, and the level of payment made in individual claims. This suggests that the outcome of claims is influenced by factors other than the merits of the claims". The claims are a result of research the SLCC commissioned into the Scottish Solicitors Guarantee Fund which supposedly exists to protect clients who have lost money as a result of the dishonesty of a solicitor. However, according to key SLCC insiders who spoke to Diary of Injustice earlier in the year, the research commissioned by the SLCC into the Guarantee Fund suffered a significant degree of control freakery, constant interference & a lack of cooperation from the Law Society of Scotland who wanted to control the entire project, and would rather the research not be published.

The Law Society of Scotland, angry at the claims issued a Press Release, rejecting any notion its 'attempt’ at consumer protection is little more than consumer fraud states : The Society has today rejected this assertion as wholly misleading as the merit of the individual claim remains the only consideration when considering the outcome of that claim and any subsequent payment from the Guarantee Fund. This was clearly explained to the SLCC in meetings and in written correspondence from the President of the Society, all in advance of today's report publication.

With the SLCC annual report being laid before the Scottish Parliament, the Society has today written to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and opposition justice spokespeople to clarify the situation and give a more accurate picture.

Alistair Morris, convener of the Society's Guarantee Fund committee, said: "It is deeply frustrating that the SLCC suggests the outcome of Guarantee Fund claims are influenced by factors beyond the merits of the claim, especially when we have made it clear verbally and in writing that such a suggestion is wholly wrong. It is even more concerning that the SLCC do not even refer to those assurances from the Society in their report. The Society co-operated fully with the SLCC when it commissioned research into the Guarantee Fund earlier this year. However we raised significant concerns at the misleading and potentially damaging interpretation of raw statistical data relating to the Guarantee Fund which suggests that the amount paid out in any claim is dependent on the sums held in the fund at any one time. We have made it clear to the SLCC, both verbally and in writing, that all Guarantee Fund claims are considered entirely on a case by case basis and on their own merit, regardless of the funds held. It is extremely disappointing that the SLCC annual report now risks misleading people into thinking that the outcomes of Guarantee Fund claims go beyond their individual merits. “

Mr Morris continued : "There are significant reserves held in the Guarantee Fund currently. Additionally, it is backed by Stop Loss Insurance amounting to £6 million and the legislation covering the Fund allows the Society to levy members if we faced circumstances where there were insufficient funds in the Guarantee Fund and Stop Loss Cover to cover the cost of a claim. Following our discussions with the SLCC we were informed that it intended to commission further research as a result of some of these initial findings. I hope this goes ahead and there will be an opportunity to demonstrate that this statement contained within the annual report laid before the Scottish Parliament is inaccurate and misleading."

Commenting to Diary of Injustice today, an SLCC insider said the law complaints quango had only pursued the Guarantee Fund issue because of criticism from law reform campaigners & investigations carried out by Diary of Injustice into the Scottish Solicitors Guarantee Fund, revealing in an earlier article published in 2009 the Law Society's 'Guarantee Fund' for clients of crooked lawyers revealed as multi million pound masterpiece of claims dodging corruption

Earlier in September 2011, Diary of Injustice reported on the SLCC’s slightly controversial report into the Guarantee Fund which has now caused the apparent fall out between the two regulators, here : DISASTER REPORT : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission study of Law Society “Guarantee Fund” suffers 13% turnout, finds clients ‘treated as criminals’

13% response disaster for SLCC report on Law Society’s crooked Guarantee Fund. A REPORT carried out by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) into the notoriously corrupt “Scottish Solicitors Guarantee Fund”, a ‘client protection’ scheme operated by the Law Society of Scotland to compensate clients who have lost money because of theft by dishonest crooked lawyers & their staff has been hit by an ABYSMALLY low response of only NINETEEN replies from ONE HUNDRED & FORTY FIVE questionnaires (13%) after the Law Society refused to hand over client contact details to the SLCC & its selected research company who were investigating claims against crooked lawyers in Scotland. One client who did reply to the survey said claimants “were made to feel like a criminal” at Guarantee Fund hearings.

THE REPORT, carried out on behalf of the SLCC by Progressive, a research company based in Corstorphine Road, Edinburgh, claimed the Law Society of Scotland had REFUSED to hand over a detailed contact list of members of the public who had contacted or submitted claims to the Guarantee Fund over the past 5 years. The company & SLCC were left with NO CHOICE other than to leave the Law Society of Scotland to distribute the forms to clients that it felt should be provided with a questionnaire.

Jane Irvine, SLCC Chair left out critical mentions in report announcement. In its announcement publicised online, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission DID NOT mention the low turnout of NINETEEN PARTICIPANTS in its Press Release, available HERE, nor did the SLCC publicise the fact the Law Society of Scotland distributed the forms themselves after REFUSING to hand over Guarantee Fund claimant details to the company preparing the report or the SLCC itself. Legal insiders have commented today the survey was badly handed by the SLCC who were branded by one official from a Scottish consumer organisation as “too close to the Law Society for comfort” and “unwilling at best to get to the truth”. I reported on just how badly this latest SLCC survey was being handled in an earlier article, here : CENSORED : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission's secret new Master Policy & Guarantee Fund research 'shuts out' real victims of crooked lawyers

Progressive, the firm conducting the survey on behalf of the SLCC said in their now published report : “Progressive was not able to receive a database of contact details from the Law Society of Scotland. As such the questionnaire packs were sent to LSS for labelling and distribution.”

“There were two categories of respondents on the Law Society of Scotland’s database and therefore two methods of distribution. For the first category, LSS had contact details for the claimant themselves so packs were sent directly to them. For the second, LSS’s database only contained details for the names of the claimants’ solicitors. In order to account for this, the questionnaire packs included an additional letter asking the solicitor to forward on to their client named on the front of the envelope.”

“In total, 145 questionnaires were distributed; 85 that went directly to claimants and 60 that went to claimants via their solicitor. In order to optimise the response rates to the survey reminder letters were sent to respondents halfway through the fieldwork period. The fieldwork period was also extended to give maximise the opportunity for claimants to respond.”

“Questionnaires were returned directly to Progressive in freepost envelopes. In total 19 completed questionnaires were returned for analysis, denoting a 13% response rate.”

It had been hoped to send questionnaires out to 250 people although for unexplained reasons and doubtless due to the fact the Law Society of Scotland were controlling distribution, only 145 eventually went out.

The company were further critical of the Law Society’s methods of distribution, stating “A large proportion of questionnaires were not sent directly to claimants. Sending questionnaires first to solicitors to pass on to their clients would have affected the likelihood of the questionnaires reaching them and also their likelihood of completing them.” Progressive further warned : “This is likely to impact response rates.”

The report also claims : “Missing information on labels. A few solicitors fed back that there was no client contact on the packs they were sent so were unable to forward these on, again, affecting the final response rate (at least 4 reported this to be the case)” and that some clients who were sent questionnaires by the Law Society of Scotland could not be traced because they had moved address.

The report went onto state all of those who eventually responded to the survey (NINETEEN PEOPLE IN FIVE YEARS) were suspiciously successful in their claim “to some extent” but even among those, there was still evidence of some dissatisfaction with the outcome and the decisions behind it. Clearly the Law Society of Scotland had chosen clients it thought would give the Guarantee Fund a better write up than others with more horrific experiences.

The report states : “Ten of our respondents were successful in their claim, all of whom were satisfied with the outcome. Six were partially successful and of these, four were dissatisfied.”

From the comments provided as to the reasons why, one respondent’s dissatisfaction stemmed from the perception that they were not provided with direct answers for the decision. Three comments related to respondents not receiving full compensation and feeling that the decision made and the reasons for it were not clearly explained to them.

One respondent to the survey stated : “It seemed as if the Scottish Solicitor’s Guarantee Fund were trying to pay as little as possible and were looking after their own interests. Again you were made to feel like a criminal at the hearing.” Another respondent said : “I was not fully compensated for a fraud that was not my fault but my solicitor's, who was now in jail and yet I had to suffer financially and with stress.”

Comments from the five people who provided reasons for their satisfaction expressed relief that the process had come to an end and they perceived that the Fund had worked well for them.

One respondent said : “Achieved desired outcome although would have preferred not to have gone through the process at all.”Another respondent said : “[Because] I felt that I could move forward and bring closure to the whole affair [as] I had felt very let down by the solicitor involved in my particular case.”

Bearing in mind the turnout for the report is so small, its findings & recommendations are very limited, due mostly to the notably poor advertising of the survey by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (who apparently wanted as small a number of participants as possible) and the fact the Law Society of Scotland were allowed to distribute the forms on their own, rather than identification & distribution be handed over to the report’s authors or an independent body.

Chancers Calling - SLCC Board Member Margaret Scanlan branded Guarantee Fund claimants as “chancers”. It should also be borne in mind SLCC Board Members have already expressed anti-client sentiment against claimants to the Guarantee Fund, where in one publicised incident, SLCC Board Member Margaret Scanlan raged against claimants to the Guarantee Fund, branding them “chancers” in a series of bitter emails revealed to the public by Freedom of Information legislation, revealed here : Officials pull FOI disclosures as Guarantee Fund "chancer" emails show Law Society anti-client bias has migrated to Legal Complaints Commission & here : MacAskill must clean up law complaints body as members 'booze culture conduct' reflects lack of discipline & will to investigate crooked lawyers

Speaking to Diary of Injustice this afternoon, a client who has been waiting FIVE YEARS for his claim to the Scottish solicitors Guarantee Fund to be paid after his solicitor stole nearly SEVENTY THOUSAND POUNDS from his client’s bank account, felt the argument between the SLCC & Law Society “is somewhat staged”. He went onto say it was his experience neither the Law Society or the SLCC can be trusted to properly regulate the legal profession in Scotland.

In spite of the Law Society’s condemnation of the claims contained in the SLCC’s annual report, it is now an established fact that claims against the Scottish Solicitors Guarantee Fund have been the subject of delaying tactics & corrupt attempts to prevent any payouts in most damages claims made by members of the public who have been left in financial ruin after growing numbers of Scottish lawyers have embezzled their clients funds.

More analysis of the latest annual report of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission for 2011 will be published during the week.

Identity of Mr Big who paid for ‘hitman’ to slash Law Society ex Chief Accountant ‘is known to Police’ as Robert Graham gets ELEVEN years for attack

2011-12-18T10:31:00.001Z

Robert Leiper Graham was sentenced to eleven years for attack on Law Society’s Chief Accountant Leslie Cumming. ROBERT GRAHAM (46), the ‘hitman’ who was convicted in mid November 2011 by a majority jury verdict after being extradited from Australia to face trial for carrying out an attack on Leslie Cumming the now retired Chief Accountant of the Law Society of Scotland, was sentenced to ELEVEN YEARS earlier this week on Thursday at the High Court in Edinburgh for his part in what was alleged to have been an attempted murder bid rather than ‘a wounding’ (as key legal insiders suspect) to warn Mr Cumming off investigating ‘crooked lawyers’.

The mysterious attack on Leslie Cumming in 2006, was the subject of private briefings given by the Law Society’s most senior officials, seeking to blame the attack on critics of the legal profession yet only one single newspaper ran the Law Society’s claims after it had become clear the attack was most likely organised by a crooked colleague of Mr Cumming connected to or from within the legal profession itself.

Reported on BBC News and in the Daily Record newspaper, Judge John Morris QC, passing sentence in Edinburgh, told Graham: "You have been convicted by a jury of a pre-meditated and sustained murderous attack on a member of the public going about his lawful business, and you did that apparently for financial gain.” He continued : "In these circumstances I'm sure you'll appreciate a substantial custodial sentence is appropriate." Judge Morris also recommended deportation for Graham after he had served his sentence.

While Graham has never admitted who paid him to carry out the attack, it is widely accepted Police are well aware of the identity of the villain(s), reported to be connected to Scotland’s legal world. However as of yet, no steps have been taken to arrest anyone else in connection with the 2006 attack, casting doubt on the ability of Lothian & Borders Police to get the individuals behind the crime, whose identity & position some say “may be causing fear & alarm in legal circles for the opening of a larger can of worms if additional arrests are ever made.”

TRIAL OF LAW SOCIETY ACCOUNTANT’S ATTACKER :

During the trial, Graham denied attempting to murder the Law Society accountant, claiming he did not assault Mr Cumming, rather he intervened in the attack, (allegedly carried out by another party) to stop Mr Cumming getting “a bigger hiding”. Graham also told the court he was born in Ireland as Paul Francis McGhee before emigrating to New Zealand at the age of nine but in Britain he called himself Robert Graham. The court also heard from a witness that Graham had confessed to a colleague that he had "done a judge in" and was paid £10,000 by a guy in a BMW to give him "a good working over".

The witness who told the court of the alleged boast by Graham, scaffolder Nicholas Wells said he started work at Wembley Stadium in January 2006 and Graham joined a few weeks later. In a statement to police, he said: "He told me around this time he had done a judge in in Edinburgh, having jumped out some bushes at him. I can recall him telling me the guy from the BMW paid him £10,000 to do the job and told him to give the guy a good working over." Mr Wells told the court he had been approached by the police at a site he was working on in Edinburgh in 2009. Asked if he had told them the truth, Wells replied: "As I remember it at the time." He added: "I was taking a lot of drugs at the time. I was taking a lot of sleeping tablets ... it is hard to remember it all clearly now."

The court heard that during the assault, Mr Cumming grasped the balaclava worn by the attacker in an attempt to pull it off while further DNA evidence was recovered from the Barbour jacket Mr Cumming was wearing at the time of the attack. Additional DNA material was taken from Mr Cumming before doctors treated his wounds, and the DNA was linked back to Graham in tests.

At the conclusion of the trial, John Logue, Area Procurator Fiscal for Lothian & Borders, said: “In 2006 Robert Graham targeted and tried to kill Leslie Cumming because he was paid to do so. Today, almost six years later, he has been found guilty of this vicious and cowardly attack after being extradited from Australia.”

Mr Logue continued : “He was brought to justice by the perseverance and diligence of officers in Lothian and Borders Police who tracked him down, assisted by Interpol and authorities in New Zealand and Australia. I hope that today’s successful prosecution will secure the confidence of the Scottish public that those who try to evade justice will be pursued and brought before the courts.”

Commenting after the majority verdict convicted Robert Graham of the attack on Mr Cumming, the Solicitor General for Scotland, Lesley Thomson QC, said : "He uses the name Robert Leiper Graham in this country and Paul Francis McGhee in New Zealand. The Crown is not in a position to say he is either of these people at this stage." Ms Thomson also said when Graham left New Zealand in 1999 there was an outstanding warrant out for him and that a notice had been served on him in a move to deport him from Britain.

Leslie Cumming, former Law Society of Scotland’s Chief Accountant. At the end of the trial, Mr Cumming commented : "The police perseverance and professionalism and the Crown Office input have been vital in securing the result. It's important to me that I got that closure and I just want to thank the members of the team who were involved in this complicated case for their efforts on my behalf. The actual event was horrific and bloody and having to explain to the court in such detail as we could recall at this time was traumatic for my wife and me. I hope now the trial is complete and the result is known that this nightmare has ended for us and we can get back to normal life."

However, the multi million pound investigation carried out by Lothian & Borders Police and the subsequent conviction of Robert Graham left more questions than answers over why the attack occurred in 2006, who allegedly paid Graham to carry our the attack and why Law Society of Scotland officials and a media outlet were so keen to pin the blame for the attack on critics & campaigners in a year where the Scottish Parliament had begun a major investigation into the Law Society of Scotland and its notoriously prejudiced closed shop handling of the regulation of crooked lawyers.

Over the years, insiders have claimed the Police have a good idea of exactly who ordered the attack on Mr Cumming, some even linking up the incident to other well reported frauds in Scotland which involved millions of pounds, well known crooked solicitors and a banker. However Lothian & Borders Police have said nothing officially on any of these claims.

The answer to the attack may well lie in Leslie Cumming's role with the Law Society of Scotland, where as its Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Accountant, Mr Cumming was in charge of teams of inspectors who audit the financial accounts of law firms to ensure compliance with the Law Society’s rules (rules to keep accounts, not rules to rip off clients as much as possible and undetected). Mr Cumming was also involved in disciplinary cases, of which there are many, many resulting in no criminal convictions where, for example a solicitor might make off with half a million pounds from a deceased’s client will, and get away with it, and be allowed to carry on working.

It is also noteworthy Mr Cumming in his role as Deputy Chief Executive played number two to the also now former Chief Executive Douglas Mill, who resigned in disgrace after a scandal involving the fiddling of Master Policy insurance claims against crooked lawyers which was exposed by the now Cabinet Secretary for Finance, John Swinney during a meeting of the Justice 2 Committee later the same year Cumming was attacked. The video footage of Mr Swinney’s exposure of Douglas Mill & the Law Society’s Master Policy fraudulent insurance fiddle scheme, can be viewed online HERE.

The conviction of Graham for the assault on Mr Cumming also closes the book on the Law Society’s attempt to fit-up critics & campaigners for the 2006 incident, where it was reported, senior Law Society officials had even provided statements to Police urging them to ‘collar’ persons the Law Society ‘did not get along with’.

Law Society of Scotland officials used Police, newspapers in attempt to link their critics to attack on Chief Accountant Leslie Cumming The Law Society of Scotland has of course, declined to explain why its senior officials gave private briefings to newspaper journalists just after the attack on Mr Cumming in late January of 2006, urging the publication of stories which were intended to pin the blame for the assault on Mr Cumming on critics & law reform campaigners who were seeking an end to self regulation of the legal profession (Cash laundering link to law chief stabbing, 29 January 2006, Scotland on Sunday). However, journalists at the time identified those at the Law Society who were involved in the private briefings & telephone calls to newspapers. Strangely, not one Law Society official was identified in the Scotland on Sunday story despite the highly charged accusations levelled against critics & law reform campaigners published in the paper.

A spokesperson for the Law Society of Scotland said of Mr Cumming at the end of the trial : "He was a dedicated and popular member of staff and the attack was a great shock to his former colleagues. Leslie was determined not to let the attack stop him from living life to the full and he has done that in so many ways."

Like his former Boss, Douglas Mill who has a consultancy business, Leslie Cumming now runs his own consultancy business, Leslie Cumming Consultancy Services.

The trial of Robert Graham at the High Court in Edinburgh commenced on 7 November 2011 and last for 9 days. It was prosecuted by the Solicitor General for Scotland, Lesley Thomson QC, who was the Procurator Fiscal in the abandoned Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of a young girl who was massively overdosed with radiation, the Crown Office made the usual claims “lessons will be learned”.

Mr Logue’s claims that those who try to evade justice will be pursued & brought before the courts apparently do not apply to lawyers who swindle millions of pounds from the legal aid budget each year in multiple frauds, as revealed by Diary of Injustice in an earlier report here : FOURTEEN lawyers accused of multi-million pound legal aid fraud escape justice as Scotland’s Crown Office fail to prosecute all cases in 5 years

In a double slap to Mr Logue’s contentions of what happens to those who evade justice, one of the FOURTEEN alleged legal aid fraudster lawyers who escaped prosecution by the Crown Office, was/is married to one of Mr Logue’s own Procurator Fiscal colleagues, reported here : Admissible Evidence ? Crown Office Prosecutor married to lawyer accused of legal aid fraud, both still working, Legal Aid Board ‘convinced of guilt’

Diary of Injustice previous coverage of the attack on Leslie Cumming and the saga of the trial of Mr Graham can be read here : The blame game & who paid for attack on Law Society Chief accountant Leslie Cumming

Scots public support strengthening of Freedom of Information laws says Information Commissioner in final speech to Holyrood FOI Conference

2011-12-16T14:13:00.001Z

Scotland’s Information Commissioner Kevin Dunion calls on Scottish Govt to strengthen FOI legislation. THE outgoing Scottish Information Commissioner Mr Kevin Dunion has today called on the Scottish Government to strengthen & extend Scotland’s FREEDOM OF INFORMATION laws after new research revealed 91% of the Scottish public view FOI as an important way to hold public bodies to account for their spending decisions, and over 80% want FOI extended to cover other bodies that provide public services. The Commissioner, who has today delivered his final keynote address to the Annual Holyrood Freedom of Information Conference, also warned AGAINST changes which might limit the public's access to information, in light of evidence that being charged for information would deter 64% of people from making an FOI request.

Speaking on the eve of the conference, Kevin Dunion said: "Freedom of information has been a success story in Scotland, and public awareness of the law is at an all time high. However, there are clearly a number of areas where the law would benefit from further clarification and enhancement, and we await the Scottish Government's proposals. More generally, I have long called for FOI to be extended to a greater range of organisations, particularly in light of the loss of rights that occurs from changes in the way that public services are delivered. We are in danger of falling behind the rest of the UK where, unlike Scotland, designation of bodies such as the Association of Chief Police Officers has already taken place. Furthermore, the Westminster Government has indicated its intention to designate many more bodies including the Law Society and the Local Government Association.”

Mr Dunion added : "Where amendments to the law are being considered we must be extremely cautious about any suggestion that the FOI right should be restricted, for example through wider exemptions or the introduction of increased fees for requesters. We know from the experience overseas that this can have a very damaging effect on the public's uptake of FOI. The research published today shows that a significant proportion of the Scottish public - 64% - believe they would be put off making an FOI request if they had to pay to receive the information, and this figure is even higher among more vulnerable groups, such as young people and the unemployed."

Freedom of Information legislation has played a particularly important role in revealing just how inefficient & anti-consumer the Scottish legal services market is regulated by bodies such as the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, where consumers have faced regular & overt prejudice in the SLCC’s dealings with complaints made by members of the public against their solicitors. FOI also revealed earlier this year how corrupt usage of self regulation of the legal profession has led to millions of pounds of legal aid being stolen by solicitors who escaped criminal charges because their colleagues at the Crown Office did not gather enough evidence to prosecute.

The research, which was carried out by Ipsos MORI in December 2011 and can be downloaded via the Commissioner's website or read online HERE here , also reveals that :

Awareness of FOI is at its highest level, with 80% of respondents stating that they were aware of the law, compared to 76% during the previous wave in 2009,

89% of respondents agree that it is important for the public to be able to access information held by public authorities,

Even in straitened times for the public sector, 77% disagreed with the suggestion that FOI was a waste of public money, with only 14% agreeing.

There is strong public support for FOI to be extended to cover additional organisations, with:

88% agreeing that trusts providing services on behalf of local authorities should be covered,
82% agreeing that housing associations should be covered,
83% agreeing that private sector companies who build and maintain local authority schools or hospitals should be covered,
73% agreeing that prisons which are run by the private sector should be covered.

The research was undertaken as part of Ipsos MORI's Scottish Public Opinion Monitor, a telephone survey of 1,001 members of the public. Fieldwork was undertaken between 1 December and 4 December 2011. 64% of respondents agreed that they would be put off making an FOI request if they had to pay for the information. For respondents who described themselves as "not working" this figure was 70%, while it was 80% for respondents aged 18-24.

In September the Scottish Government's Programme for Government 2011-2012 included a Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, which is intended to add strength and clarity to the FOI legislation. The Government has announced its intention to publish a consultation paper on the Amendment Bill today which readers can find out more about on the Scottish Government's Consultations website with a direct link to the consultation on FOI here : Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

FOI investigations revealed SLCC board members cared more about boozing-up & insulting consumers than prosecuting crooked lawyers. Freedom of Information legislation has played a particularly important role in revealing just how inefficient & anti-consumer the Scottish legal services market is regulated by bodies such as the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, where consumers have faced bitter booze fuelled anti-client hate rants by the SLCC’s own board members & regular & overt prejudice in dealings with complaints made to the SLCC by members of the public against their solicitors. While FOI has revealed many problems at the SLCC, the Law Society of Scotland, Faculty of Advocates & Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal remain exempt from FOI legislation due to a variety of excuses and an intense lobbying campaign from the legal profession for their own organisations to remain secret & unaccountable from the law & public opinion.

FOI also revealed earlier this year how corrupt usage of self regulation of the legal profession led to millions of pounds of legal aid being stolen by solicitors who escaped criminal charges because their colleagues at the Crown Office were not able to gather enough evidence to prosecute, even though lengthy investigations had already been conducted by the Scottish Legal Aid Board.

SCOTLAND’S FIRST INFORMATION COMMISSIONER DEPARTS OFFICE 2012 :

Kevin Dunion was appointed as the first Scottish Information Commissioner in February 2003. In February 2008 he was reappointed for a second, and final term. He will demit office at the end of February 2012. The Commissioner is responsible for enforcing and promoting Scotland's freedom of information laws. In January 2012, the Commissioner plans to lay a Special Report before the Scottish Parliament. The report will set out the Commissioner's views on the current state of Freedom of Information in Scotland. Find out more about the Scottish Information Commissioner’s work and FOI generally at www.itspublicknowledge.info

Vested interests breathe sigh of relief as Lord Hamilton bans “Tweeting” in Scottish courts ‘for now’, while English ‘tweet on’ with judicial blessing

2011-12-14T15:05:00.002Z

Spot the difference : Scotland’s Lord President Lord Hamilton continues ban on tweets in Scottish Courts for now while England can tweet away. TWEETING from a mobile phone or other electronic device in a Scottish court is still likely to get you sent down for contempt of court “until full consideration can be given to formulating suitable guidance” said Scotland’s Lord President, Lord Hamilton today after the Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales cleared journalists & legal commentators to use text based devices such as mobile phones & laptops to communicate from court.

While the guidance from England’s courts confirm journalists & legal commentators south of the border can now tweet with judicial blessing & without asking the court’s prior permission, members of the public are still required to make an application to tweet.

A Press Release, issuing the guidance from the Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales states : Interim guidance on live, text based communications from courts in England and Wales was first issued on 20 December 2010, following which the Lord Chief Justice consulted widely including the media, the Secretary of State for Justice, the Attorney General and members of the public After considering the responses he has published NEW GUIDANCE

The Lord Chief Justice for England & Wales, said : “A fundamental aspect of the proper administration of justice is open justice. Fair, accurate and, where possible, immediate reporting of court proceedings forms part of that principle,” Interim guidance on live, text-based communications from courts in England and Wales was first issued on 20 December 2010, following which the Lord Chief Justice consulted widely including the media, the Secretary of State for Justice, the Attorney General and members of the public.

Under the interim guidance journalists had to make an application to the judge to request permission to use electronic devices to send text. The new guidance makes clear that there is no longer any need for representatives of the media/legal commentators to make an application to use text-based devices to communicate from court. Members of the public should make a formal or informal application if they wish to use these devices. Use of devices should not cause a disturbance or distraction. The judge always retains full discretion to prohibit live, text based communications from court, in the interests of justice. The “paramount question” for the judge in deciding whether to allow live text-based communications is whether it may interfere with the administration of justice. “the danger ….is likely to be at its most acute in the context of criminal trials, eg where witnesses who are out of court may be informed of what has already happened in court and so coached or briefed before they then give evidence” or where legal discussions in the absence of the jury may appear on the internet and be seen by jury members.

The guidance emphasises that anyone using electronic text is strictly bound by the existing restrictions on reporting court proceedings, under the Contempt of Court Act 1981. Photography in court remains strictly forbidden under the Criminal Justice Act 1925.

Responding to the development in England & Wales, Scotland’s Lord President Lord Hamilton issued a statement continuing the ban on tweets & the use of electronic devices in Scotland’s Courts. Lord Hamilton said : “I note the Guidance issued today by the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales on the use of live text based communication from court. I will give full consideration to this Guidance and its implications with a view to formulating suitable Guidance in Scotland”.

The statement from the judicial office for Scotland went onto say “Currently the permission of the court is required to use devices that allow live text based communication from court. That position remains unchanged.”

Tweets were first used in the trial of Tommy Sheridan earlier this year, where the judge, Lord Bracadale agreed tweets could be used in court for the first time in the perjury case' sentencing phase which also saw leaks of interview tapes from Lothian & Borders Police of Mr Sheridan’s wife being accused of adopting ‘terrorist tactics’ of looking at a fixed position during interrogation. No inquiry has ever taken place into who at Lothian & Borders Police leaked the tapes to a media organisation and no one has been arrested for leaking the tapes, an act which is thought to be a criminal offence in itself.

Clearly Scottish Courts may not be too happy about court observers tweeting yet another crooked lawyer or some other vested interest managed to wriggle out of a court case against them … possibly because Twitter would end up collapsing under the weight of Tweets of injustice … or that the numbers might start adding up on who is actually being provided access to justice in Scotland … not ordinary Scots, that’s for sure.

They think its all over : Solicitors from Hell owner to appeal High Court’s website shutdown order ‘all the way to Europe if necessary’

2011-12-09T15:52:00.004Z

It’s not over until the European judges sing : Solicitors from Hell owner will appeal High Court order to close website after the ‘suffering’ of lawyers. IN RESPONSE to the publication of MR JUSTICE TUGENDHAT’s written ruling in the case of The Law Society, Hine Solicitors & Kevin McGrath v Rick Kordowski which granted the vested interests of the legal profession in England & Wales their demand to shut down the critical website known as SOLICITORS FROM HELL where clients could posts online reviews of their experiences with solicitors, Mr Kordowski, the owner of the now censored Solicitors from Hell website has said he intends to appeal the draconian judgement “all the way to Europe if necessary”.

The judgement, dubbed by many as a blistering attack on free speech and the rights of consumers to express their views on services provided to them by their lawyers details in no uncertain terms the lengths to which the vested interests of the legal profession of England & Wales ‘had gone after’ Mr Kordowski.

In one part of the judgement, Mr Justice Tugendhat brands the Solicitors from Hell website owner as “A public nuisance” who “is in effect a vexatious litigant”. Readers of the judgement will note there is not one single remark in the judge’s opinion which appears to be critical of the legal profession.

As Justice Tugendhat’s judgement continues , the Law Society of England & Wales Counsel, Mr Tomlinson states that the Claimants and in particular, the First Claimant, have no objection to proper criticism of the legal profession or debate about whether a particular solicitor has failed to provide service of appropriate quality in a particular case. Informed debate on these issues is clearly in the public interest and a proper exercise of the right to freedom of expression. But he submits that the Website makes no contribution whatever to such debates but instead sets out to and does provide a forum for the publication of malicious and defamatory allegations about solicitors. The Website operates against the public interest and the Claimants have brought this action with the aim of ensuring that it ceases operation. The Law Society is concerned about the enormous reputational damage that is, and can be, done to firms and lawyers as a result of their being listed on the Website. It is also concerned about the disservice to the public. The dissemination of misinformation to members of the public through the Website may deter members of the public from instructing good solicitors.

However, most see the Law Society’s claims against the Solicitors from Hell website as little more than an attempt to censor consumers online debate of how they have been treated by their lawyers, whether good or bad. The legal profession in general are firmly against clients being able to “name & shame” their solicitors in any venue, and have been known to threaten newspapers who carry reports of “crooked lawyers” with legal action or the withdrawal of advertising. In several well known instances in Scotland, individual journalists have had their careers threatened if they did not cease reporting on “crooked lawyers”.

Diary of Injustice earlier this year revealed the Law Society hoped to use its battle with Solicitors from Hell to dissuade the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) from going ahead with its own policy of naming & shaming “crooked lawyers”, reported by Diary of Injustice here : English, Scots Law Societies ‘team up’ in legal moves against “Solicitors from Hell” in bid to stop Legal Ombudsman ‘Naming & Shaming’ crooked lawyers. However the attempt failed, after the LeO announced naming & shaming is to begin in 2012 reported earlier here : Scots to be ‘kept in dark’ on details of crooked lawyers while Legal Ombudsman’s ‘naming & shaming’ policy ‘will protect’ consumers in England & Wales

In what some may see as a spiteful move against Mr Kordowski, who has been made bankrupt by the legal profession in their pursuit of him, the judgement also revealed the trustee in bankruptcy had also gone after the solicitors from hell website domain and all its contents, gaining an interim injunction to prevent Mr Kordowski handing over the website to someone else to operate.

Quoting Mr Justice Tugendhat’s ruling : As a result of the Defendant's bankruptcy the intellectual property rights in the Website and its contents are vested in his trustee in bankruptcy, but he has not taken any steps to transfer them. Rather, on 2 November 2011, he announced that he had decided to "give the website away" to "experienced owners who operate overseas". The Claimants successfully applied for an interim injunction to restrain this transfer on the basis that it would constitute unlawful data processing and harassment. An interim injunction was granted by Langstaff J restraining the transfer ("the Transfer Injunction"), returnable at this hearing.

The full judgement in the case can be read here : The Law Society, Hine Solicitors & Kevin McGrath v Rick Kordowski

Speaking to Diary of Injustice, Mr Kordowski said : “The judgment contains claims that both the second and third Claimants had long suffered significant damage, upset and could not work who the author of the published allegations were. It is interesting to note that neither of these Claimants ever asked me who the author of the posted allegations were. No letters, emails, nothing! As to why they continued to allegedly 'suffer' in the way for many months without contacting the publisher, one can only imagine.”

Mr Kordowski continued : “My argument was (and still is) that the current libel laws are sufficient to protect the defamed. However, Justice Tugendhat states that even if I could prove that every single listing was true and justified or of honest opinion that harassment & data protection laws supersede the current libel laws. Which is quite simply outrageous.”

“He [Justice Tugendhat] states that I am someone who 'STILL attempts to charge lawyers if they want comments to be removed'. He didn't have any evidence to back this up - as there is no evidence. I do not charge lawyers. Justice Tugendhat also goes on to say that I am a 'Public Nuisance' like an environmental hazard!”

“I will appeal, which will be thrown out, obviously. So it seems that both I and the public will not get justice in this country. I will most definitely take this matter to the European Court in Strasbourg. The High Courts decision is simply tyranny - we are not in China, Iran or an African despot, this is the democratic UK!”

Not all lawyers welcomed the terms of the written ruling which shut down Solicitors from Hell, with one solicitor branding the decision as “costly, unbalanced and in the long run, counterproductive to the interests of the legal profession at large”

Solicitors from Hell 2 has returned to replace the original Solicitors from Hell website. The new Solicitors from Hell 2 website which is registered in the USA, and is thus outwith the reach of UK Libel laws, replaces the now censored Solicitors from Hell. As before, clients can rate their solicitors and document their experiences whether good or bad although this time, it may be more difficult for the Law Society to act. The new website states : Solicitors From Hell 2 will allow people to upload articles about Solicitors from within the UK or anywhere else in the world this will be done automatically & free of charge. Should a complaint arise we will require evidence to substantiate your complaint. or the removal of the offending post or words will take place. This will be at the sole discretion of Solicitors From Hell 2 editors. Further should anyone claim that any item is defamatory and can prove the information wrong then the post will be removed free of charge.

SCROOGE’D : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission buries ‘bad news’ annual report at Christmas, again refuses to release ‘compensation to clients’ data

2011-12-07T16:46:00.001Z

Bah, Humbug ! MacAskill’s Scottish Legal Complaints Commission intends to bury its bad news annual report on the run up to Christmas. CHRISTMAS is a good time to bury bad news and the many ghosts of Christmas past, especially if the bad news happens to come from Scotland’s regulator of complaints against ‘crooked lawyers’, the anti-client Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) who, after a series of unexplained delays, are expected to publish their latest annual report on or after 20 December 2011 in the hope of quietly burying its consistently poor performance as Scotland’s legal watchdog which has so far not recommended the prosecution of one single crooked lawyer in what is approaching a very long four years since being created in 2008.

And in an attempt to keep the public from knowing just how bad the SLCC have performed, the SLCC has today REFUSED a SECOND Freedom of Information request to release information & figures on exactly how much money the SLCC have awarded over the last three years to clients who have suffered financially at the hands of their legal representatives. Since the SLCC came into being in 2008, it has NEVER published any data or information on how much compensation it has awarded clients who raised complaints about their solicitors.

The SLCC’s second letter refusing to disclose the compensation amounts awarded to victims of crooked lawyers states : “I confirm the SLCC holds the information that you have requested. The SLCC endeavours to release as much information as possible. However, it has decided that the information you have requested is exempt from disclosure under the exemption found in Section 27 (1)(a)(i) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.

The information you have requested is intended to be included in the SLCC’s annual report, which at the time of writing this letter is excepted to be published within 12 weeks. The SLCC has considered whether to withhold the information is reasonable and decided that it is because it will enable us to publish the information in context and in conjunction with other information about complaints.

The SLCC accepts that the information is of interest to the public but in the context of this decision has considered whether its release at this time, in advance of the publication of its annual report is in the Public Interest as set out in the Information Commissioner’s guidance. The SLCC’s view is that the arguments for withholding under section 27 outweigh those for releasing it.

1. The information requested is pertinent to the public in that it gives an indication of the effectiveness of the SLCC and information to both complainers and practitioners about outcomes of complaints. It would be argued that publishing this information as soon as possible is in the public interest for this reason.

2. The SLCC has a wider duty to report on complaints about the legal profession. Putting information in an appropriate context and publishing it in conjunction with other information to add meaning and value to it is an essential part of that reporting. Releasing the information as requested would not enable that to happen.

3. The SLCC has a statutory duty to lay its annual report before Parliament. It is in the public interest that this is complete and appropriately quality controlled. Release of discrete sets of data in advance of publication would not support that.

I appreciate that in response to your earlier FOISA request of 5 July 2011, we had detailed our expectation that out annual report would be published within 12 weeks of your request. While this was our intention, we unfortunately experienced production related delays. Considering this delay, we have approached your request afresh in light of the above guidance along with our present confidence that we should be in a position to release our annual report within the next six weeks. We have also gone on to consider whether we should release the information anyway. Our decision is that section 27(1) should still apply and the information be withheld for all the reasons stated in this letter.

This is the SECOND FOI request for information on actual compensation figures paid out to clients who complained about their lawyers, with the first request, in July being refused by the SLCC’s Chief Executive Rosemary Agnew as a “vexatious request”, to which Scotland’s Information Commissioner Kevin Dunion found the SLCC had failed to handle correctly. Mr Dunion’s decision stated : Following an investigation, during which the SLCC withdrew its reliance upon section 14(1), the Commissioner found that the SLCC had failed to deal with Mr Cherbi's requests for information in accordance with Part 1 of FOISA, on the basis that Mr Cherbi's requests were not vexatious in terms of section 14(1). The full decision by Mr Dunion can be read here Decision 219/2011

TODAY, an insider close to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s Board has revealed the SLCC HAD NEVER INTENDED to publish information on compensation paid out to clients until Diary of Injustice had raised the matter in FOI requests to the SLCC. The insider claimed the FOI requests, coverage of the issue on Diary of Injustice, a “rather nasty, bitter discussion between board members relating to Mr Cherbi’s investigations” (which I have been told of) and Mr Dunion’s own investigation as a result of this journalist’s request to Mr Dunion’s office on the matter, have collectively FORCED the SLCC into a reluctantly taken decision to eventually publish the compensation data.

The insider said : “The levels of compensation paid out to consumers is on the low side and the SLCC never expected to be asked about it. However because the information was requested via Freedom of Information, it was down to playing a waiting game to structure the data in such a way any criticism over the low value of awards will be curtailed by other issues in the Annual Report.”

He continued : “To put it bluntly, the SLCC abused Freedom of Information legislation to cover up the compensation figures it will find embarrassing given the amount of money spent on the SLCC and public expectations of a better complaints service than was provided by the Law Society of Scotland.”

The SLCC has the power in Section 56 of the Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 to award up to £5,000 to complainers who are directly been affected as a result of the solicitor’s misconduct (as a result of a conduct complaint) or up to £20,000 for complainers who have been directly affected by the inadequate professional services provided by their solicitor (in the case of a service complaint). The compensation awards in all instances are at the direction of the SLCC to be paid by the solicitor who is the subject of the complaint.

Earlier in October of this year, Diary of Injustice revealed the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission were awarding victims of crooked lawyers as little as TEN POUNDS, after their lives had been shattered by the actions of their legal representatives. The article can be read here : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission refuse to publish details of ‘loose change’ client compensation as board & staff live it up on YOUR millions

As revealed on Diary of Injustice on Monday of this week, the SLCC’s Board have authorised their Investigations Manager to produce a report on the levels of compensation paid to clients after a discussion took place at the SLCC’s October board meeting. However it was revealed in the discussions that solicitors & clients had in some cases not accepted the levels of compensation awarded by the SLCC.

The minute of the SLCC’s October meeting stated : There was some debate around the levels of compensation recommended at Investigation stage and the levels of compensation awarded at Determination stage. It was agreed that the Investigations Manager would provide a report on compensation/abatement recommended and rewarded. The report should include any comments from the Practitioner and Complainer as to why they are not accepting proposed settlements. The target date of this report being completed is laughably listed in the October board minutes as February 2012.

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission was created as a result of the Legal Profession & Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007, and brought into being by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill in 2007 spent TWO MILLOIN POUNDS of taxpayers money on the hapless law complaints quango. Mr MacAskill went onto handpick a collection of quangocrats, ex Police Officers & lawyers to fill the SLCC’s board who have to-date claimed somewhere in the region of over HALF A MILLION POUNDS in expenses claims yet the SLCC has by its own admission only upheld one single complaint against an unidentified solicitor

£10 compensation for victims of crooked lawyers while Scottish Legal Complaints Commission spend more than £1/4 MILLION on law firms & ‘legal advice’

2011-12-05T21:08:00.008Z

FOI battle reveals LOADSAMONEY for law firms at the SLCC while little or nothing has been paid to clients ripped off by crooked lawyers. FIGURES DISCLOSED after a Freedom of Information battle with the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) over requests to find out how much the SLCC has paid for hospitality, have revealed the anti-client law complaints quango which claims to ‘independently’ regulate Scotland’s legal services market has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on consultants & on law firms, one of which is linked to one of its own Board members. In one year alone, 2010-2011 the legal costs of the SLCC rocketed to a staggering £215,871 on legal advice from Edinburgh law firms Anderson Strathern (£69,675), and Shepherd & Wedderburn (£146,196), linked to one of the SLCC’s own Board members, David Smith, (husband of Court of Session judge Lady Smith), who retired from Shepherd & Wedderburn in 2008 to join the SLCC’s Board on a daily renumeration package of £212 A DAY plus other expenses.

However, while the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission is apparently keen to throw a significant proportion of its annual income on ‘legal advice’ to battle appeals by the legal profession against its remit to investigate crooked lawyers, the SLCC’s Chief Executive, Rosemary Agnew has angrily REFUSED to disclose any figures on how much money the SLCC has awarded victims of crooked solicitors who have had their finances completely WIPED OUT by corrupt lawyers brought to the attention of the SLCC.

Diary of Injustice has reported on the battle to force the SLCC to release figures on compensation paid to clients ruined by their lawyers in an earlier article here : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission refuse to publish details of ‘loose change’ client compensation as board & staff live it up on YOUR millions and in that report, it was revealed one of the paltry awards of compensation handed out to one client whose life suffered as a result of their solicitor’s actions was a shocking measly £10.

In response to Freedom of Information requests seeking information on the true levels of compensation paid out to clients of rogue solicitors, the SLCC refused to disclose ANY details of the amounts of funds which have been awarded to consumers who made complaints to the regulator about their solicitors, arguing they were not required to disclose the information as it was going to be published within twelve weeks of the Freedom of Information request being made, which was in mid July. The SLCC’s Chief Executive, Rosemary Agnew also branded the requests “vexatious” in an attempt to thwart any release of the sensitive figures, rumoured to be PENNIES compared to the scale of the financial damage done to clients by their legal representatives who turned out to be corrupt.

Scotland’s Information Commissioner, Kevin Dunion was asked to look at the SLCC’s refusal to hand over the information. Mr Dunion’s decision stated : Following an investigation, during which the SLCC withdrew its reliance upon section 14(1), the Commissioner found that the SLCC had failed to deal with Mr Cherbi's requests for information in accordance with Part 1 of FOISA, on the basis that Mr Cherbi's requests were not vexatious in terms of section 14(1). The full decision by Mr Dunion can be read here Decision 219/2011, however as the second week of December 2011 approaches, no annual report has been released by the SLCC and neither has any information on how much money it has handed out to people who have had their lives all but ruined by their lawyers after legal cases turned sour.

The only public reference the SLCC has made to compensation paid out to clients of rogue solicitors came in a note in its heavily censored October Board meeting, where the minute of the meeting stated : There was some debate around the levels of compensation recommended at Investigation stage and the levels of compensation awarded at Determination stage. It was agreed that the Investigations Manager would provide a report on compensation/abatement recommended and rewarded. The report should include any comments from the Practitioner and Complainer as to why they are not accepting proposed settlements. The target date of this report being completed is laughably listed in the October board minutes as February 2012.

A source close to the SLCC has admitted to Diary of Injustice the issue of compensation paid to clients is only now being discussed because it has been raised in Freedom of Information requests & investigations. However while it remains the SLCC has steadfastly REFUSED to release any figures on how much compensation it has handed out to clients who fell victim to corrupt solicitors, the battle over the FOI requests did force the early publication of the vast expenditures of the SLCC in other areas such as on consultants, fees for legal advice and hospitality, as part of the requirements of the much welcomed Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, which was introduced on 28 May 2009 by John Swinney MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth and voted into law by msps at the Scottish Parliament last year.

John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance & Sustainable Growth introduced a new law bringing some much needed transparency to public bodies who are seemingly on the take. The Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010 implements wide-ranging reforms to the public bodies landscape in Scotland. It abolishes a number of bodies which are no longer necessary; provides order-making powers which enable Scottish Ministers to bring forward further proposals to improve public function and remove or reduce burdens; imposes new duties of openness and transparency on the Scottish Government and public bodies; establishes Creative Scotland as the new single national body for the arts, culture and creative industries; reforms and streamlines the bodies responsible for health, social work and social care scrutiny; and puts in place improvements to the arrangements for scrutiny and complaints handling.

Details of the SLCC’s expenditure to comply with the new law brought in by the Scottish Government are listed below, published ONLY AFTER Freedom of Information requests were made for the information this year by this journalist : CLIENT MONEY FUNDS LUXURIES, PR, CONSULTANTS & LEGAL ADVICE FOR SCOTLAND’S WHITE ELEPHANT LAW REGULATOR THE SCOTTISH LEGAL COMPLAINTS COMMISSION :

Annual Expenditure 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2011 disclosed under the Public Services Reform (Scotland ) Act Public Relations CAB Exhibition Costs £836, SCVO Exhibition Costs £1,020, Meltwater News UK Media Monitoring Service £9,392, Newspaper Licensing Agency Media Monitoring Service £315, McCallum Media Monitoring Media Monitoring Service £719, George Nicol Graphics Annual Report £8,718, Minuteman Press Annual Report £601, Holyrood Communications Advertising £969, Devlin Photography Photography £319, Yell Advertising £9,602 ,Total £32,491 Overseas Travel NIL Hospitality and Entertainment Marks and Spencer Catering for Meetings and Events £969, One World Shop Supply of Fairtrade Tea/Coffee £742, Other Local Suppliers Catering for Meetings and Events etc £1,759, Total £3,470 External Consultancy Wildcat One HR Consultancy £16,816, CA Consulting Production of Employee Handbook £15,677, Scott Moncrieff Internal Audit Services £12,516, Audit Scotland External Audit Fees £13,034, RSM Tenon VAT Advice £9,400, Julie Murphy Accountancy Service £5,103, Insight Training Database Development £3,868, University of Manchester Legal Research £5,464, Progressive Partnership Legal Research £5,155, Survey Monkey Survey Costs £200, Total £87,233 Payments in excess of £25,000 Threadneedle Property Unit Trust Rent and Service Charges (paid quarterly) £248,214, Shepherd and Wedderburn Legal Advice June 2011 (also included below) £25,277 Suppliers paid in excess of £25,000 City of Edinburgh Council Business Rates (paid monthly) £55,476, Scottish Government SCOTS Lite IT Support and Maintenance (paid quarterly) £58,453, Hays Specialist Recruitment Recruitment Costs 2010/11 £26,535, Anderson Strathern Various Expert Advice £69,675, Shepherd and Wedderburn Various Expert Advice £146,196.

It should be noted the SLCC’s annual accounts of 2010 reported the SLCC claimed to have spent £57K in 2009 and £87K in 2010 on legal fees so adding in the latest figures available shows the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has spent at least £359,871 on lawyers, and those figures do not include its formation year of 2008 where the SCLC received TWO MILLION POUNDS of taxpayers money to establish itself as Scotland’s worst regulator of legal services ever, even perhaps worse than the Law Society of Scotland, but then again, as many have now found out, the SLCC is simply the Law Society of Scotland in all but name.

So, the question remains, how much compensation has been paid out by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to clients who have been financially ruined by their lawyers and what do those clients feel about what they received in return for what their lawyers did to them?

DEMOCRACY LIVE @ Holyrood ? Scottish Parliament to re-launch e-Petitions website after major redesign hopes to improve Scots interaction with politics

2011-12-02T15:18:00.002Z

Scottish Parliament’s e-petitions website was down for much of the year, awaits imminent re-launch. SCOTS eager to add their signatures or debate the many & varied subjects of Public Petitions submitted to the Scottish Parliament as E-PETITIONS, should again be able to exercise their right to add their contributions to Scotland’s political landscape with the expected re-launch of e-petitions at Holyrood sometime later this December, according to statements released by the Scottish Parliament’s media office. The re-launch of the e-petitions website comes after the well used facility to sign & discuss petitions had been taken offline for many months after it had experienced several widely reported failures, most notably in a petition for a debate on the Lockerbie Trial.

E-Petitions, for those who are not familiar with the term are the electronic online version of a public petition submitted by an individual, which has additional advantages of encouraging online discussion & debate among contributors as well as having the facility to add signatures to a cause anyone thinks worthy of support.

A statement on the Scottish Parliament’s e-petitions website which has lain dormant for a number of months since the Parliament re-launched it’s website during late summer states : A new system for submitting petitions online is currently being developed which we hope to launch shortly. In advance of the launch of this new system, the e-petition facility has been suspended therefore there will be no facility to host petitions online and gather e-signatures. The new system will feature a new e-petition site.

For those of you who want to use the Internet to petition the Parliament, e-Petitioner allows you to have your petition live on the Internet, rather than just on paper. This way, your petition and supporting information can be made available to a potentially much wider audience, giving you the opportunity to gather more names to support the petition.

A petition may gather signatures in both forms - you can have a paper version and an online version, although repeat signatures will be removed. Each e-Petition also has its own discussion forum, where visitors and signatories can discuss the petition and surrounding issues online. There is also space for supporting information, so that you can add any background necessary and put your petition in context.

Speaking to Diary of Injustice, a spokesperson for the Scottish Parliament commented on the expected e-petitions system re-launch. She said : “Petitions can still be lodged with a webpage on the Parliament’s site for each petition. The Scottish Parliament was the first Parliament to launch an e-petitions site and the 11 year-old system required updating to ensure it could continue to meet both high demand and users’ expectations.”

The spokesperson continued : “The new e-petitions site, where petitioners can gather signatures prior to the petition being lodged, is expected in December.”

Noting the success of some petitions at the Scottish Parliament which petitioners and observers have claimed were ‘helped along’ with the addition of short video clips of specific debates on specific petitions by the Petitions Committee which were posted online on social media outlets, and also here on Diary of Injustice with regards to the long running & heavily debated McKenzie Friend petition, consumer advocates & law reform campaigners have made it be known to Diary of Injustice that a facility on the Scottish Parliament’s e-petitions website to include short video clips of debates on petitions would be a great help to those wishing to participate in online discussions of petitions, rather than having to search through hours of video clips of entire Committee sessions already posted on the Scottish Parliament’s website.

If readers are not familiar with how video clips have helped along some petitions, examples of short clips of petition debates, particularly on the McKenzie Friend petition can be found on Injustice TV and in previous reports on the McKenzie Friend petition, covered by Diary of Injustice HERE where video coverage posted to You Tube and on Diary of Injustice helped bring in international submissions on the McKenzie Friend issue.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Parliament, responding to the idea of including video clips in a form similar to how the BBC DEMOCRACY LIVE website operates, said : “It has never been our intention to provide a service along the lines of Democracy Live. The Parliament has always made available video of all its meetings in public – and this will continue to be the case. The whole petitions system will be integrated now, and it will be easier to register, track, comment and interact with Petitions.”

Anyone who wishes to contact the Scottish Parliament’s Petitions team can do so via emailing the Petitions Committee here : petitions@scottish.parliament.uk where staff & clerks from the Petitions Committee can address individual questions and develop direct relationships with potential petitioners, providing appropriate support to them.

Video clips of debates including Margo MacDonald’s fantastic input on McKenzie Friends swung it for success, said observers, and one angry senior judge ! In my experience on petitions I have reported on, particularly the McKenzie Friend Petition which saw the Scottish Parliament’s shining gem, Margo MacDonald MSP give what can only be described as fantastic input into a petition to assist Party Litigants with lay assistance in Scottish Courts, helped along with a particular court judgement in a long running case, the short video clips of the discussions at Holyrood which accompanied reports of the McKenzie Friend petition’s progress on Diary of Injustice, gave an example of how the public, politicians and even members of the judiciary react to the distribution of & public comment on video clips of debates in the Scottish Parliament.

The inclusion of short video clips specific to petitions, along with written reports and a facility to debate or comment on the Committee’s proceedings gives a greater chance of success to the petition at hand and a greater chance of Scots to debate and understand how they see the issues of the petition progressing before their very own eyes. It would be such a simple yet effective addition to the e-petitions website for petitions to have video clips of their own specific debates posted alongside the actual petition.

When lawyers fall out at Biggart Baillie LLP : SLCC's decision to dismiss lawyer’s ‘vexatious complaint’ against own law firm thrown out by judges

2011-11-30T21:06:00.003Z

Lord President Lord Hamilton was critical of failures at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission in appeal judgement for lawyer. THE COURT OF SESSION has allowed an appeal by a partner in the law firm of Biggart Ballie LLP against a decision of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) to dismiss his complaint against his own firm as "vexatious and totally without merit". The judgement, handed down by the Lord President Lord Hamilton, Lord Bonomy & Lord Marnoch was critical of the SLCC’s decision to dismiss the complaint, relying on the fact David Hamilton Kidd, the solicitor who made the complaint was still a partner at Biggart Ballie. The blundering anti-client SLCC was also heavily criticised by the judges for failing to take steps “to identify with exactness against which solicitor or solicitors this complaint was truly directed”. The critical judgement ironically came on the same day Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill made yet more appointments to the SLCC’s notoriously anti-consumer board.

While the Court of Session’s judgement scrapped the SLCC’s decision not to investigate the complaint filed by the solicitor, David Hamilton Kidd, and remitted it back to the SLCC to be dealt with, it is noted the solicitor who won the latest round in the numerous court challenges brought by solicitors against the SLCC has himself, faced controversy before, having an entry on the well known Scottish legal scandal expose website BentJudges.com, where during the course of the same law firm Biggart Baillie acting for a clients, letters appear to have been doctored so information was withheld from their client who then complained to the Law Society of Scotland. The Bentjudges.com website goes onto further report Mr Kidd “lost the client's file which contained documentary evidence incriminating his Biggart Baillie colleague, Alan McFarlane in a scheme to defraud a client”.

BentJudges.com reports : “In 2002/2003 the Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman (SLSO) found that the Law Society had twice failed to "understand or investigate" allegations of collusion and conflict of interest against the then law society president’s firm, Biggart Baillie LLP, and two partners. The SLSO findings on the Law Society’s investigation and re-investigation substantiates this website's contention that the Law Society’s failure in its statutory duty to investigate complaints is, without doubt, premeditated. The failures in question involved such extreme departures from established legal principles – coupled with a total disregard of clear-cut evidence of professional misconduct. Any possibility that those failures can be attributed to investigative negligence on the part of those distinguished Law Society legal minds, must surely be discounted.”

The then Scottish Legal Services Ombudsman (SLSO) investigated the complaint made against Biggart Baillie on the case, more of which is reported on the BentJudges.com website along with evidence of doctored letters withheld from the client who reported the law firm to the Law Society of Scotland. It is also noteworthy the SLSO was forced to reinvestigate the Law Society’s re-investigation after being told to look again at the complaint, and criticised the Law Society’s Client Relations office, under the Directorship of Phillip Yelland for not taking steps to intimate the complaints to either Mr Kidd or the other solicitor in the complaint, Alan McFarlane, in an almost re-run of the SLCC’s apparent lack of will to probe the identities of the solicitors at Biggart Baillie who were the subject of Mr Kidd’s complaint.

The SLCC has issued no comment and no estimate of the fees it cost to defend against the action which it has now lost.

The decision from the Court of Session in the latest case involving a solicitor taking on the SLCC, follows :

FIRST DIVISION, INNER HOUSE, COURT OF SESSION Lord President, Lord Bonomy, Lord Marnoch, [2011] CSIH 75 XA35/11 OPINION OF THE COURT delivered by THE LORD PRESIDENT in Application for leave to appeal by DAVID HAMILTON KIDD Applicant; against THE SCOTTISH LEGAL COMPLAINTS COMMISSION Respondents: Act: Davies; Stuart Kidd, W.S. Alt: Lindsay, Q.C.; Simpson & Marwick 25 November 2011

[1] The applicant is a solicitor, having qualified as such in 1973. In 1978 he became a partner in Messrs Biggart Baillie, Solicitors, subsequently Biggart Baillie LLP. He developed a particular expertise in child law. A major client of the firm for about fifteen years was the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration ("SCRA"). The applicant was the leading partner of the firm providing advice to that client.

[2] In about April 2008 the applicant fell ill with depression and anxiety and went off work. The firm continued to act for SCRA, the leading role then being taken by Jennifer Spence, an associate. Later in 2008 the applicant was considering returning to work but his doing so was not regarded as acceptable by his fellow partners. By letter dated 21 November 2008 he received notice, signed by thirty two of the thirty four other equity partners, suspending his entitlement to a share of the profits under the partnership agreement. He was instructed not to attend the office. His fellow partners decided that he must cease to be a partner. A proposal for his retirement was made. In January 2009 the applicant's solicitors were advised by solicitors acting on behalf of the partnership that, unless agreement to his retirement was secured, steps were likely to be taken to expel him. It was stated that significantly more than 80% of the equity partners (the percentage required for such expulsion) had already signed a notice of intention to that effect. Agreement was not immediately reached and the applicant technically remained a partner until December 2010.

[3] In early 2009 SCRA was giving further consideration to the provision to it of legal services. In about April 2009 a written proposal was made to it by Biggart Baillie LLP for the provision of such services - apparently for three years. It was presented under the name of Alan Strain, one of its partners. A number of service delivery areas were identified, the first of these (lot 1) being legal services in relation to the statutory functions of SCRA - essentially child law and related topics. Three other service areas - employment law, property law and general commercial law - were identified. Photographs and professional histories, of each of the legally qualified persons in Biggart Baillie LLP who were presented as able to provide the requisite services, were included in the proposal. For each lot a "lead person" was identified. For lots 2, 3 and 4 the lead person identified was a partner in the firm. For lot 1, however, the lead person identified was Mrs Spence, the associate. The applicant, designed as a partner, was presented as a member of the lot 1 team. The client partner was identified as Alan Strain, the lead person in the lot 2 (employment law) team. In an opening chapter of the proposal it was stated:

"Key to a successful partnership is structuring our service to meet your objectives. We achieve this by allocating a client partner for the contract and a lead person with responsibility for overseeing each service delivery area. ... We anticipate that complex cases will be handled primarily at Partner/Senior Associate level with appropriate support from Assistant Solicitors."

The applicant was not alerted prior to the submission of the proposal to the fact that his name and particulars were to be included in it. Nor was his consent obtained. He had sight of the proposal only many months later.

[4] The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission was established by section 1 of the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 (2007 asp 5). Section 2 provides:

"(1) Where the Commission receives a complaint by or on behalf of any of the persons mentioned in subsection (2) - (a) suggesting -
(i) professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct by a practitioner other than a firm of solicitors or an incorporated practice;
(a complaint suggesting any such matter being referred to in this Part as a 'conduct complaint');
it must ... take the preliminary steps mentioned in subsection (4).
(2) The persons are -
(a) as respects a conduct complaint, any person;
(4) The preliminary steps are -
(a) to determine whether or not the complaint is frivolous, vexatious or totally without merit;
(b) where the Commission determines that the complaint is any or all of these things, to -
(i) reject the complaint;
(ii) give notice in writing to the complainer and the practitioner that it has rejected the complaint as frivolous, vexatious or totally without merit (or two or all of these things)."

By section 46(1) a "practitioner" includes a firm of solicitors and a solicitor. As regards a solicitor "unsatisfactory professional conduct" means "professional conduct which is not of the standard which could reasonably be expected of a competent and reputable solicitor, but which does not amount to professional misconduct. ...". The nature of "professional misconduct" is defined by the common law (Sharp v Law Society of Scotland 1984 SC 129, at pages 134-5).

[5] By section 5(1) it is provided that where the Commission determines under section 2(4) that a complaint is none of frivolous, vexatious or totally without merit, it must determine whether it constitutes a conduct complaint (or a services complaint). If it determines it is a conduct complaint, it must under section 6(1) remit the complaint to the relevant professional organisation (here the Law Society of Scotland) to deal with. Guidance on the application of the sifting provisions in section 2 is given in Law Society of Scotland v Scottish Legal Complaints Commission 2011 SC 94.

[6] The Commission has made provision for complaints to it to be made by completion of a pro forma complaint form. The applicant completed and submitted such a form. In response to the question as to whom he was complaining about the applicant marked each of the boxes "solicitor" and "firm of solicitors". In respect of the former he said: "Of all those involved in preparing this tender I do not know who had actual knowledge of my position but certainly Alan Strain did. Alan Strain has since resigned."; in respect of the latter, he stated "Biggart Baillie LLP". The substance of his complaint was expressed as follows:

"A tender was submitted to SCRA on or about April/May 2009 in which it was misrepresented that I continued to be the lead (and only) partner in the core team that would deliver the core service to SCRA. The reality was that at the time the tender was submitted, it had already been made clear to me that there was no prospect of me being permitted to return to business and provide any legal services to any client or prospective client of the LLP. In making this misrepresentation in the tender SCRA were led to believe that there was a prospect that I could indeed actively resume the role as lead partner in the core team and thereby personally deliver legal services to them. That was untrue."

[7] By letter dated 10 March 2011 the Commission intimated to the applicant that it had determined that his complaint was "vexatious and totally without merit". To that letter it appended "Reasons for the Decision". The substance of the reasoning was expressed as follows:

"3.1 The issue to be determined is whether identifying Mr Kidd as a member of the core team at a time when he was absent on sick leave and Biggart Baillie LLP were actively pursuing his exit from the firm amounts or could amount after further investigation to either unsatisfactory conduct or professional misconduct. Mr Kidd was at the time of submission of the tender a partner in Biggart Baillie LLP. It is difficult to see how presenting him as such and even a partner who was a core member of the team, in a tender could amount to misleading a client and therefore a breach of the conduct standards. Biggart Baillie LLP knew that Mr Kidd's return was highly unlikely but until termination or resignation Mr Kidd remained a partner and Biggart Baillie LLP were entitled and to some extent obliged to treat him as one. There are a number of issues of law surrounding the rights and obligations of partners and firms and these are matters for Mr Kidd and Biggart Baillie LLP.

3.2 The complaint has to be considered in the context of an acrimonious dispute between Mr Kidd and Biggart Baillie LLP. It looks like it may have a vexatious element to it in that it has the appearance of being made in order to make trouble for Biggart Baillie LLP rather than for any other reason. For this reason the SLCC considers the complaint to be vexatious in addition to being totally without merit."

[8] It is now apparent that before the Commission issued that letter its officials had made certain enquiries, the results of which were set out in a "Gateway Recommendation" - although that document was not referred to in the Reasons for the Decision and it is not evident what reliance (if any) the author of the Reasons, whom we were informed was a single Commissioner, placed on the content of that document. The writer of the "Gateway Recommendation" had recommended that the complaint be rejected as totally without merit - though not as vexatious. The writer had observed:

"1.5 No practitioner has been named in this complaint, as the complainer has not identified the practitioner responsible for submitting the tender in question, however, given the writer's conclusion that the complaint is totally without merit, this information will only be sought should the recommendation not be accepted by the Board of the SLCC."

[9] Although, as mentioned above, reference had been made in the complaint to Alan Strain, no enquiry appears to have been made by the Commission of him as to any response he might be able to make to the complaint. Enquiries were, however, made of Biggart Baillie LLP, with the senior partner of which (Mr Murray Shaw) the Commission's Case Officer had correspondence. In the course of it Mr Shaw produced certain documentation, including a number of e-mails. One of these was an e-mail dated 2 December 2009 from Alasdair Peacock, the managing partner of Biggart Baillie LLP, to the applicant in which Mr Peacock had stated among other things:

"They [SCRA] were specifically told that you were on long term absence and as such you were not actively involved in delivering the service. They were well aware of this as you had not been involved for many months. If we had led the client to believe that you were to be actively involved then they would surely have commented on your lack of involvement since the tender was won. They have not done so."

It was stated elsewhere in the documentation that what SCRA were "specifically told" was communicated orally. No documentation passing from Biggart Baillie LLP to SCRA in amplification or qualification of the written proposal was produced.

[10] The nature of the exercise which the Commission has to undertake under section 2 has been explained in Law Society of Scotland v Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. It is a "sifting" exercise, the object of which is to secure that a conduct complaint, which in the judgment of the Commission is frivolous, vexatious or totally without merit, is not passed to the relevant professional organisation for investigation and determination. It is not for the Commission to determine the substantive merits of any conduct complaint nor to undertake any investigation beyond that necessary to discharge its sifting function. In particular, it is not for it to resolve any material dispute of fact which may have a bearing on the complaint. As Lord Kingarth observed at para [35] of Law Society of Scotland v Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, it may be necessary for the Commission to make further enquiry of the complainer to ascertain the basis on which the complaint is made. Ordinarily in a conduct complaint it will also be appropriate for the Commission to seek initial comment from the individual solicitor complained about, if known or ascertainable, on the complaint. That is because, if there is an immediate and instantly verifiable complete answer to the complaint, it is appropriate that that is known before any determination is made under section 2. An accepted complaint alleging professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct is necessarily a significant matter for any solicitor who is the subject of it; it is likely to be productive of stress (per Lord Kingarth at para [34]). If the solicitor has an immediate and instantly verifiable complete answer to the complaint, it is only fair to him or her that this should be known and taken into account at the sifting stage.

[11] It may be noted in passing that conduct complaints, in so far as directed against solicitors, are competent only against individuals, not against a firm of solicitors or an incorporated practice (section 2(1)(a), as read with section 46(1)). Thus, the comment should be sought from the individual or individuals in question. In some cases it may not be evident who that individual or those individuals are. In such circumstances it may be appropriate, for the purpose only of making that identification, to make enquiry of a relevant firm or incorporated practice.

[12] Section 21(1) of the 2007 Act provides: "Any person mentioned in subsection (2) may, with the leave of the court, appeal against any decision of the Commission under the preceding sections of this Part as respects a complaint on any ground set out in subsection (4)."

The persons mentioned in subsection (2) include the complainer and the practitioner to whom the complaint relates. Section 21(4) provides:

"The grounds referred to in subsection (1) are -
(a) that the Commission's decision was based on an error of law;
(b) that there has been a procedural impropriety in the conduct of any hearing by the Commission on the complaint;
(c) that the Commission has acted irrationally in the exercise of its discretion;
(d) that the Commission's decision was not supported by the facts found to be established by the Commission."
"The court" means the Court of Session (section 46(1)).

[13] Accordingly, any complainer must obtain the leave of this court to appeal against any decision of the Commission under section 2(1). This case comes before us as an application for leave. It was, however, accepted by parties that we should treat it as a "rolled up" application - that is, if we were satisfied that leave should be granted, we should proceed to decide whether or not the appeal should be allowed.

[14] On its face the written proposal carried, in our view, the clear representation to the client that the appellant would be available to provide legal services to it as part of the team providing advice on the primary area of the client's activities, performance of its statutory functions. That there was something unusual about the applicant's position was, however, obvious from the fact that, although he was the only partner identified for that area of work, he was not described as the lead person; his junior, Mrs Spence, an associate, was so described. As the applicant had, to the knowledge of the client, been off work for some time and Mrs Spence had meantime, it may be assumed, been the primary adviser, the representation made by the written proposal was consistent with the applicant not having as yet returned to work - even with an uncertainty as to when he would return. It was not, however, readily consistent with a situation in which there was no realistic prospect of his ever returning to provide, as a member of the lot 1 team, services to the client. If the latter was in fact the situation and the client had in fact been misled in that regard, the circumstances were such that the relevant professional organisation could conclude that there had been, at least, unsatisfactory professional conduct by the solicitor responsible for the framing and submission of the written proposal. The mere fact that the applicant was at the time of that submission still a partner of Biggart Baillie LLP in no way takes away from the representation on the face of the written proposal that he would actually be available in a practical sense to provide services to it. Whatever precisely were the rights and obligations under the partnership agreement of Biggart Baillie LLP with regard to the applicant as a partner suspended from entitlement to share in the firm's profits, the firm, and the responsible partner, had no right to represent the applicant to the client as available to provide legal services if in reality there was no prospect of his ever becoming so available. His continuing status as a partner did not warrant such a representation.

[15] The 2007 Act does not expressly require the Commission to give reasons for its determination under section 2(4)(a). But the Commission in practice gives reasons and has done so here. Accordingly, it is the validity of the stated reasons which must be addressed. Where the decision-taker has clearly taken a different line from the author of any background material, as the Commission did in relation to the Gateway Recommendation, we consider it appropriate to look only at the decision letter to discover the reasons for the decision.

[16] Paragraph 3.1 of the Reasons for the Decision essentially relies on the applicant's continuing status as a partner for the conclusion that the complaint was totally without merit. In that respect it is flawed - see para [14] above. It is not only arguably irrational but, in our view, clearly so. That part of the decision cannot, for that reason, stand. As to paragraph 3.2, the author seems to postulate that there may have been a malign subjective element in the making of the complaint. In a different context (Lord Advocate v McNamara 2009 SC 598 at para [31] and the cases there referred to - though cf paras [32]-[33]) it has been suggested that the test for vexatiousness of proceedings may be essentially objective. However that may be, it was accepted before us that, if the Commission's decision that the complaint was totally without merit could not stand, its decision that it was vexatious could not stand either.

[17] It is plain that the official in the Commission responsible for framing the Gateway Recommendation made enquiry of Biggart Baillie LLP and took into account that firm's version of events, including what, according to it, the client had been told orally about the applicant's position. The Commission's decision letter makes no reference to that ex parte account, perhaps advisedly so. Even at its highest that information does not go so far as to suggest that the client was informed, privately or otherwise, that there was no realistic prospect of the applicant ever returning to provide services as part of the core team. In these circumstances the court must proceed upon the basis of the Commission's expressed reasons for its decision. Its decision cannot stand and must be set aside.

[18] No steps were taken by the Commission to identify with exactness against which solicitor or solicitors this complaint was truly directed. The view was taken (para 1.5 of the Gateway Recommendation) that, as the writer's conclusion was that the complaint was totally without merit, it was unnecessary to seek that information at that stage. It is, however, important that the solicitor or solicitors be identified - not least because he, she or they should have an opportunity personally to comment on the complaint - albeit at this stage only for the purpose of assisting the Commission to decide whether the complaint is frivolous, vexatious or totally without merit.

[19] In all the circumstances we shall grant leave to appeal, allow the appeal, set aside the Commission's decision of 10 March 2011 and remit to it to proceed as accords.

Lawyers fees rip YOU off @ £137+ per hour : Save yourself some money & hurt by going elsewhere for your access to justice

2011-11-30T14:06:00.002Z

The Law Society of Scotland Edinburgh HQ provides access to justice ? More like a license to steal from clients. DURING A BIG FREEZE, plumbers & repairmen are often demonised for charging what are branded ‘exorbitant fees’ by the press for coming out to fix your broken down gas boiler, frozen pipes or whatever the disaster is at home. Last winter for instance, we were treated to headlines such as “Big Freeze means big money for plumbers” who were alleged to be charging £150 an hour for repairing your frozen or broken pipes. However lawyers get away with this all the time, charging anything from £137 upwards an hour, yet newspapers, and most consumers pay no attention to these rip-off fees from the legal profession until its too late, that is, when the bill lands through your letterbox for yet another botched up job done by your soon-to-be unfriendly lawyer who has taken three years and several thousand pounds more to do a job you were told, or thought, could land you a tidy sum and be completed in a few months at most.

Now, as consumers you all like to think you are savvy, and wont be taken in by a cowboy builder who claims they can miraculously knock half your house down and rebuild it complete with a solid gold extension for £10.52 +VAT. In fact many [although not all] consumers do appear to be able to spot the cowboys in the building trade.

Not so with the legal profession, where it appears just about all of you, that is, everyone & anyone strolling through the doors of some lawyer’s office lose all their common sense and their supposed consumer savvy to the little-more-than-a-snake-charmer sitting behind the desk, promising you access to justice, a reasonable deal on a house or some resolution to some [let’s be honest, idiotic] dispute between you & your neighbours which is going to be blown out of all proportion by yours & their lawyers for years, at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds to both of you and your families.

Have you heard the one about the boundary dispute between two neighbours which started in 2006, where both parties have forked out over SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS and are still nowhere near a court or a resolution to their squabble? There must be thousands of cases like this in Scotland & throughout the UK, and all that happens is your friendly lawyer who is billing you for several pints of blood by the hour, is making themselves & their law firm a lot richer while you get a lot poorer.

How about the one where the lawyer arm twists you into writing a will, appointing your lawyer as your executor and its witnessed by the secretaries of the law firm ? Again, thousands of times a year this happens throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK, and thousands of times a year there are complaints about the same lawyers ripping off the wills of their dead clients yet not one of these consumers who believe themselves to be savvy enough to spot a hot deal, or a cold crook, twig to the fact they are being ripped off in a scam which sees lawyers steal hundreds of millions of pounds from deceased’s estates every year throughout the UK.

Divorce, wills, boundary disputes, land & property transactions, damages claims, negligence, you name it, your lawyer provides it, all in the name of access to justice. Its actually business, and a very profitable one for them.

We could sit here talking about examples where lawyers have ripped off consumers all day, thousands of cases happening all over the country, to people who consider themselves able to spot a hot deal on the internet, yet when it comes to dealing with a lawyer, just about all consumers seem to turn into a soggy old bar of soap waiting to be scooped up and thrown in the bin.

So, the next time some lawyer tells you they exist to provide access to justice, and want to rip you off at £130 plus an hour, or when your solicitor hands you some surprisingly cheap estimate of what you legal troubles will cost you to resolve, walk out of your lawyers office before your life becomes a living hell and you join the thousands of people out there every year who have to deal with the same ‘surprisingly cheap estimate from their lawyer’ which then turns out to be anywhere up to 17 times the figure a few years on from when you first stupidly engaged your solicitor on some frivolous issue just because you were promised a megabucks settlement which turned out to be fantasy.

You made a mistake hiring your lawyer in the first place, you know that now. You realise your will is a bit of a scam, because the lawyer is going to help themselves to most of it, you realise your years long boundary dispute, or your years long trek to court to sue a hospital over a medical injury is going nowhere because the case is really more about your lawyer making their fees, rather than any final settlement for you obtaining the ‘justice’ you claim you deserve.

So, why don't you do something about it and stop throwing your money at lawyers you know nothing about who are in reality doing this on a regular basis to client after client ? We are in a recession, you know, and the last people you should be going anywhere near is the best pals of the bankers, the lawyers who are so worried about their dwindling business, they are beginning to place stories in newspapers in attempts to bring more clients through the doors of their chambers of horrors.

AND NOW THE GOOD NEWS : LAWYERS PROFITS IN STEEP DECLINE

FIGURES put out by the Law Society of Scotland (which means we have to take these with a pinch of salt) claim the value of the legal sector to Scotland is around £2.2 billion pounds, perhaps one of the reasons that even the First Minister has been wired up to the Law Society’s lobby machine to promote Scottish lawyers in the middle east while stripping away consumer protection from crooked lawyers in Scotland.

Earnings of Scottish solicitors have taken a dive since the recession of 2008, however, to compensate for their loss of earnings, theft of client funds, fraudulent fee demands, embezzlement, negligence, and the numbers of cases being taken on by solicitors to scoop up fees and dropped later on without a result are swelling by the day.

Profits per partner have fallen from £104,000 in 2008 to £64,000 in 2010, while fees per partner are down from £125,000 to £104,000 over the same period. This reflects the fact that solicitors were able to charge £146 per hour on average in 2008 but were charging £137 per hour by 2010. To compensate for this, salaries have risen as a proportion of fees from 30% in 2008 to 34% almost in percentage terms, in line with the rising levels of fraud against clients.

The figures also report there are 10,380 too many solicitors in Scotland, plus about the same number of paralegals, who are also looked after by the Law Society of Scotland (escpecially the ones who like to steal from client' accounts to fund their spending, or even drug habits).

Of those 10,380 solicitors wrecking havoc throughout the country and dipping their fingers into your finances, 3659 work in private practices as principals, with a further 3416 as partners or juniors. Of the rest, 1734 work in the public sector either for the Scottish Government, councils or quangos, doing as much damage as they can to public services in Scotland and taking as much as they can from the public purse, and 761 work as in-house legal advisers for private companies, which is probably why a lot of private companies are suffering because they are being provided by bad & expensive legal advice. A higher proportion of solicitors are men, with the split currently standing at 54% to 46%.

New brooms or new stooges ? MacAskill appoints 4 more board members at £212 a day each for 5 years to anti-client Scottish Legal Complaints Commission

2011-11-25T15:27:00.002Z

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill swells the anti-client law quango SLCC’s board. KENNY MACASKILL, Scotland’s Justice Secretary has today appointed two lawyers George Clark and Ian Leitch & two non-lawyers Ian Gibson and Samantha Jones to positions giving a daily remuneration of £212 each plus expenses & other benefits lasting FIVE YEARS to swell the already burgeoning board of the anti-consumer Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC), the scandal ridden law complaints quango created in 2007 as an ‘independent’ offshoot to the Law Society of Scotland whose pitiful, often corrupt performance as the self regulator of Scotland’s legal profession saw case after case where lawyers covered up for each other after solicitors financially ruined their clients by virtue of fraud, theft or negligence, or in other cases, had been accused of stealing MILLIONS OF POUNDS of taxpayer funded legal aid and escaped any criminal prosecution.

Revelations in Called to the Bars saw more consumer hate at the SLCC than consumer protection. Since the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission took over as the ‘single gateway’ for complaints against Scotland’s growing numbers of crooked lawyers, it has spent more time insulting clients than chasing after crooked lawyers. In last year’s annual report by the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal (SSDT), itself a lawyer organised quango with little oversight, the SSDT’s Chairman revealed there have been no recommendations made under the legislation which created the SLCC to prosecute ANY crooked lawyer as a result of complaints made by clients, a story reported by Diary of Injustice in an earlier article here : Law complaints quango Scottish Legal Complaints Commission 'a failure' as Discipline Tribunal reveals no prosecutions of crooked lawyers in two years

The SLCC’s poor record on recommending prosecutions is amazingly even worse than the rare prosecutions of crooked lawyers before the SSDT which are carefully stage managed by the Law Society of Scotland’s own complaints regime to give an appearance of effective regulation when in fact there is none.

It was also revealed in last year’s annual report the SLCC had, again, as it has done in each year since 2008, sent most complaints back to the Law Society of Scotland for investigation, and had only ever upheld one single complaint against an unnamed crooked lawyer, reported by Diary of Injustice in January of this year, here : ‘One complaint upheld’, 928 more sent back to Law Society & £1.8million spare cash : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission's 2010 annual report

This is the third round of appointments to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission in 2011, where in the first case, the Justice Secretary was forced to give a lawyer only job to one of the Scottish Government's own lawyers because no one else wanted it, reported in an earlier article by Diary of Injustice here : Poisoned Chalice : MacAskill forced to parachute Government’s own lawyer onto Scottish Legal Complaints Commission after Advocates shun job offer

Later in March of 2011, a second round of appointments were made to the SLCC by Kenny MacAskill, reported in an article here : One more ex-cop for anti-client Scottish Legal Complaints Commission as Justice Secretary hands out five year quango jobs at £212 per day

The new intake of board members to the lavish expenses claiming domain of the SLCC’s Board will join its ranks already populated by quangocrats with several job each, lawyers & former senior Police officers who between them already soak up mammoth personal expenses of over £150K a year in remuneration claims. The SLCC is funded by a levy on all Scottish solicitors which is ultimately recouped from client fees which, excluding the usual fraud, overcharging & false accounting have rocketed in recent years to support failed projects such as the SLCC.

All four appointments made today by Kenny MacAskill will be for five years and will run from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2016. All four of appointments are part-time and attract a remuneration of £212 for a time commitment of up to six days per month, announced in a Scottish Government Press Release : Appointments to Scottish Legal Complaints Commission

Mr Clark is a property and private lawyer. A practising solicitor since 1974 and a partner in Morton Fraser LLP for 31 years. He was also chairman of Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre Ltd for 13 years and a non-executive director of the Scottish Rugby Union. He is currently working as a consultant with Morton Fraser and is the Senior Independent Director of Scottish Building Society and is also chairman of its Nomination and Remuneration Committee. Mr Clark brings professional standing and strategic development skills to the Board along with a broad range of experience in conveyancing and working in the public and private sector.

Mr Clark is a member and chair of Private Rented Housing Panel with a remuneration of £315 a day.

Mr Leitch has a local government and parliamentary legal background. He recently took early retirement from his post as Assistant Clerk/Chief Executive of the Scottish Parliament. Previously he was Director of Resources and Governance at the Parliament. In local government he served as a Depute Chief Executive and council solicitor to a unitary authority. Mr Leitch also served as a Justice of the Peace for a number of years. Mr Leitch brings strong performance management skills as well as a background in public law and civic engagement experience.

Mr Leitch does not hold any other ministerial public appointment.

Mr Gibson has wide experience in public, private and voluntary sectors. He was Regional Director of the Scottish Ambulance Service for four years and the Director of Macmillan Cancer Relief Scotland and Northern Ireland for nine years. As a board member of the Care Commission he sat on the Complaints Review Committee. He is currently a consultant for Lloyds TSB Foundation of Scotland, the independent chair of the Highland Adult Protection Committee and a board member and vice chair of NHS Highland. Mr Gibson brings strategic and performance development skills to the Board along with extensive experience from the public, voluntary and private sector.

Mr Gibson is a member and vice chair of NHS Highland with a remuneration of £10,785 per annum.

Dr Jones has a degree in Law from the London School of Economics and a Doctorate in Social-Legal Studies from the University of Oxford. Between 1992 and 2000, she worked at the Ministry of Defence and Northern Ireland Office. From 2000 until 2010, she worked at the Scottish Parliament, initially as Clerk to the Standards Committee and latterly as Programme Manager of the Parliament's HR Change Programme and Corporate Change Programme. She is now currently a self employed Landscape Photographer who has her own business on the Isle of Mull. Dr Jones is also a consultant and her most recent project was the Aros Hall Feasibility project which is jointly funded by the Scottish Government, the BIG Lottery and LEADER. Dr Jones is also Chair of Mull Theatre Ltd and a Volunteer Crew Member on the Tobermory RNLI Lifeboat. Dr Jones brings good customer focus skills to the board along with experience of strategic and organisational improvement.

Dr Jones does not hold any other ministerial public appointment.

The SLCC was established by virtue of the Legal Profession and Legal aid (Scotland) Act 2007. Its main functions are to resolve complaints alleging inadequate professional service or negligence by legal practitioners, to refer complaints which allege professional misconduct or unsatisfactory professional conduct to the relevant professional body and to promote good practice in complaints handling. It has achieved none of these aims and has left consumers of legal services in Scotland in an even worse position than they were before in dealing with complaints against ‘crooked lawyers’.

A legal insider commenting on the latest appointments to the SLCC said he “did not expect the law quango to improve from its traditionally mediocre performance on complaints”, and branded the SLCC “.. an expensive white elephant with plush offices its work level does not justify”.

Speaking to Diary of Injustice this afternoon, a client with a complaint which has been bounced back & forth between the SLCC & Law Society of Scotland several times simply described the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission as “thoroughly prejudiced against clients” and “a rubber stamp for crooked lawyers”.

No comment has been issued by anyone from the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission at time of publication.

LAW WARS : Court upholds SLCC’s decision to reject lawyer’s complaint against ex Law Society President Jamie Millar over Regulation Committee fiddle

2011-11-24T14:24:00.001Z

Court of Session refuses lawyers appeal over complaint against ex Law Society President. A DECISION of the Court of Session to refuse a Glasgow lawyer permission to appeal a decision by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) to dismiss a complaint against the now former President of the Law Society of Scotland, Jamie Millar over allegations he misled fellow lawyers with regards to the society’s creation of a Regulation Committee to comply with the requirements laid down in the Scottish Government’s Legal Services Act 2010 reveals its not only clients of crooked lawyers who face a rough time with their complaints with the notoriously anti-consumer law complaints quango whose Board members have openly insulted & chastised complainers & lawyers alike.

Now former Law Society President Jamie Millar was alleged to at the time of his presidency to have misled the rest of the Law Society over the creation of a new committee.The complaint in this latest case, made by Glasgow lawyer & Law Society Council member Walter Semple alleged the Law Society’s President at the time, Jamie Millar had deliberately misled the profession in a communication to Glasgow Council members which said that it was necessary to change the Society's constitution in order to create the new Regulatory Committee required under the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010. Mr Semple’s complaint alleged Millar knew the Council already had such powers without the need to create a new Committee and that he had went back on his word having said at a meeting of Council that he would resign if the complaint of misleading the profession was found to be justified, all of which was in breach of the prohibition in the Solicitors Practice Rules of knowingly misleading other solicitors.

The Law Society quickly issued a statement welcoming the Court’s decision to halt Mr Semple’s complaint although the Law Society did not mention the fact the SLCC is subject of continuing legal challenges in the Court of Session brought by the Law Society of Scotland as reported earlier in 2010 here : Bitter feud between regulators as Law Society of Scotland take Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to Court of Session over complaints role.

The Law Society stated : The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) had earlier decided to reject the complaint on the grounds of it being 'totally without merit'. An application for leave to appeal the SLCC decision was rejected by the Court of Session on Tuesday, 22 November, following a hearing on 8 November.

In April, a member of the Law Society Council made a complaint to the SLCC against the conduct of Jamie Millar who was then President of the Society. This related to a communication that was issued to solicitors on the Society's constitution in advance of the AGM in March this year. Mr Millar's term of office as President was for one year only and concluded in May. The Society was informed that the SLCC rejected the complaint as being totally without merit. The SLCC will therefore be taking no further action in the matter. This application to leave to appeal the decision was made to the Court of Session and was heard today.

Current Law Society President Cameron Ritchie, fresh from a grubby tour of Dubai along with Chief Exec Lorna Jack, apparently at significant expense to drum up business for the Scottish legal market. Cameron Ritchie, who succeeded Mr Millar as President when his one year term of office came to end in May, said: "I have always considered Jamie Millar to be a person of honesty and the highest integrity. The Law Society was fortunate to have him as its president during what was a particularly difficult time within the legal profession. It was regrettable that he had to face some unfair and wholly unjustified accusations during his last few months in office. He may no longer be our president but we are fortunate to still have Jamie serving on our Council, standing up and speaking out for solicitors, both within his Glasgow constituency and across Scotland."

However, for a more accurate take on Jamie Millar, Diary of Injustice reported his installation as Law Society of Scotland President in the annual musical chairs event, here : Law Society welcomes new President, firm has links to dishonest Borders solicitors who mishandled wills & executry estates

The idea to create the Regulatory Committee came about in response to heated debate between the Law Society & the SNP minority Scottish Government of 2007-2011 over the terms of the Legal Services Act (2010) as it passed through the Scottish Parliament. The Legal Services Act came about after the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) recommended changes to Scotland’s closed shop monopolistic legal services market which is dominated & controlled by members of the Law Society of Scotland. The Scottish version of the Legal Services Act, which has existed in England & Wales from 2007, is a pale and ‘profession biased’ comparison to its southern counterpart.

During bitter exchanges between the Law Society of Scotland and the SNP minority Scottish Government, Scottish Ministers were forced to back down time & again over proposals in their bill designed to open up access to justice for ordinary Scots. In one instance, the then Communities Minister Fergus Ewing was hauled over the coals by the Law Society and quickly changed parts of the planned legal reforms, In another key capitulation, the Scottish Government’s plan for Scottish Ministers to be able to appoint lay members to the Law Society’s ruling Council was thrown out after the Society protested, reported by Diary of Injustice, here : Scottish Government back down on lay appointments to Law Society Council as lawyers interests threaten to break pro-consumer legal services bill

The Scottish Government’s own website lists the current status of the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010, reporting that although certain sections in the Act have been commenced (see the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010 (Commencement No. 1 and Saving Provision) Order 2011), the bulk of the provisions establishing the regulatory frameworks for licensed providers, confirmation agents and will writers are not yet in force. The timetable for full implementation of the Act is currently under consideration, and key stakeholders will be consulted in due course.The Scottish Government conducted a consultation on "Ownership and control of firms providing legal services under the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010" between February and May 2011. More details can be found HERE

The entire story of the Legal Services Bill, the arm twisting & threats from the legal profession over the loss of their exclusive control over access to justice markets, and the bill’s passage through the Scottish Parliament, along with video coverage of testimony before the Justice Committee is here : Legal Services Bill - The failure to open up access to justice in Scotland

The judgement from the Court of Session by Lord Mackay of Drumadoon, Lord Bonomy, Lord Marnoch in the appeal of Walter Semple against the decision of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to dismiss the complaint against Jamie Millar, follows :

OPINION OF THE COURT [2011] CSIH 74 delivered by LORD MARNOCH in Application for Leave to Appeal under Section 21(1) of the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 by WALTER GEORGE SEMPLE Applicant; Against a Determination of the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission Act: Party; Fyfe Ireland LLP Alt M Ross; Shepherd & Wedderburn LLP

22 November 2011

[1] This is an application for leave to appeal brought under Section 21 of the Legal Profession and Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 2007 in respect of a Determination made by the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission ("the respondents") arising out of a Complaint made by Walter George Semple ("the applicant").

[2] In deciding that the applicant's Complaint was "totally without merit" the respondents summarised the Complaint for their determination in the following terms:

"Issue 1: Mr Millar deliberately misled the profession in a communication of 16 March 2011 addressed to Law Society of Scotland's Council Members for Glasgow where he stated 'We must change our constitution to create this [new regulatory] committee. Without it, we will be unable to continue regulating the existing solicitor profession when the relevant parts of the Act commences (sic) over the summer.' Mr Millar knew this statement to be incorrect as he was aware that the Council had the necessary powers under the Law Society of Scotland's existing constitution. In making this statement, Mr Millar has breached Rule 14(1) of the Solicitors (Scotland) (Standards of Conduct) Practice Rules 2008 which states that solicitors must not knowingly mislead other solicitors.

Issue 2: Mr Millar went back on his word given at a meeting of the Council of the Law Society held on 25 March 2011 following the Law Society of Scotland's Annual General Meeting, where he stated that he would investigate the allegation of misleading the profession in terms of the communication of 16 March 2011 and would resign as President if the complaint was justified, in that he has failed to resign despite his investigation showing the complaint to be justified. In going back on his word, Mr Millar has breached Rule 14(1) of the Solicitors (Scotland) (Standards of Conduct) Practice Rules 2008 which states that solicitors must not knowingly mislead other solicitors."

As regards the first of these issues, it was pointed out that the communication referred to was in fact an e-mail, not addressed to the Law Society of Scotland's Council Members for Glasgow, but sent by way of a Council newsletter by three of those Council Members to their constituency members in Glasgow and Strathkelvin. There is, however, no doubt that, in reaching their determination on issue 1, the respondents had regard to the correct document. In this connection, it should be made clear, for the avoidance of doubt, that Mr Millar, against whom the Complaint was raised, was at the time of the events complained of the President of the Law Society of Scotland and a Council Member for Glasgow and Strathkelvin.

[3] Turning, then, to the first issue it appears to us that in those parts of the e-mail or newsletter complained of what was said in no way represented statements of fact but, on the contrary, can only be regarded as expressions of opinion regarding the relevant law. References in the Complaint and in the reasoning of the respondents to whether what was said was "accurate" or "inaccurate" or "true" or "untrue" are accordingly inappropriate, the real question being whether the opinion was or was not honestly expressed. In the course of the hearing before us Mr Semple and, we think, also counsel for the respondents were good enough to accept that that was so. Once the question is so framed, however, the considerations that the e-mail or newsletter was signed by three practising solicitors and that the opinion expressed has since had the support of senior counsel strongly suggest that the answer to that question lies in the affirmative. Mr Clancy, who apparently advised the Law Society in relation to legal matters, may or may not have agreed with that opinion and may or may not have been consulted but what is certainly clear is that neither the President nor his other two colleagues were in any way bound by what Mr Clancy may have said. In any event, as can be seen from the newsletter, the members of the Society were being encouraged to attend the imminent annual general meeting at which the principal business was to discuss the proposed changes to the constitution. In our opinion, the holding of an open debate on the question at issue can only mean that, while what was said in the newsletter may well have been intended to influence the membership, it cannot have been calculated to "mislead" the membership. It may be true, as Mr Semple submitted, that those who voted by proxy did not have the advantage of hearing the debate, but it is equally true that Mr Millar and his co-signatories were prepared to have the validity of their opinion discussed and examined by their peers. What is more, it is clear that when the meeting actually took place the applicant, Mr Semple, was allowed to express his own contrary opinion.

[4] Turning now to the second issue, it seems to us that, whatever may have been said at the time, it cannot have been within the contemplation of any of those present that the President should offer his resignation in a situation where the opinion which had been expressed had the support of senior counsel. In any event, we are of the opinion that, properly construed, and with particular reference to the phrase "offered to resign", what was said amounted to no more than a statement of intent. As such, it was capable of being withdrawn at a later date, particularly where circumstances had altered in the interim.

[5] What we have said above is in large measure contained within the reasons given by the respondents for their decision and on the whole matter we do not consider that they either erred in law or acted irrationally in holding on the material before them that the Complaint in question was wholly without merit. In our opinion, therefore, the present application falls to be dismissed.