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

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”

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.

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

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’

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

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.