CALLED TO THE BOARD : Documents reveal 89 applications from quangocrats to join £2 MILLION cash stash Scottish Legal Complaints Commission

Scotland’s ‘Crooked Lawyer” complaints quango experienced a rush to join its high paid do-nothing Board. DOCUMENTS obtained from the Scottish Government under Freedom of Information legislation have revealed there was a ‘mad rush’ of EIGHTY NINE applications by ‘people from other quangos all walks of life’ to fill THREE highly paid non-lawyer positions on the board of the notoriously anti-client Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, the ‘not-so-independent’ regulator of complaints against crooked lawyers in Scotland which has so far only upheld one complaint in its three years of existence after soaking up TWO MILLION POUNDS of taxpayers money in start-up costs.

The full Freedom of Information release revealing the Scottish Government’s rather tedious recruitment process including the eighty nine applications received by the Scottish Government to fill the non-lawyer board jobs can be viewed online or downloaded as an acrobat pdf document, here : Scottish Government Recruitment Process : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission Board Members 2011.

The huge volume of applications to fill the SLCC’s non-lawyer posts which attract a recession busting £212 a day together with access to massive expenses accounts & other perks all ultimately paid for by ever-rising solicitors fees to their clients, is in marked contrast to the lawyer-only board member position advertised by the SLCC, which I revealed in February in an article here : Poisoned Chalice : MacAskill forced to parachute Government’s own lawyer onto Scottish Legal Complaints Commission after Advocates shun job, attracted only one application after all but one member of the Faculty of Advocates shunned the offer.

The SLCC’s lawyer-only board member position ended up being ‘taken’ by the Scottish Government’s own standing junior counsel Maurice O’Carroll after no one else wanted the job.

CALLED TO THE BARS or BOARD : SLCC new recruits join hapless anti client law complaints quango board. As I revealed in an earlier article in March, 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 three non-lawyer positions were filled by yet another soon to retire Senior Policeman, Grampian Superintendent Iain McGrory, Ms Fiona Smith, formerly of Standard Life & a former Human Resources Director with NHS Orkney who resigned from her NHS Orkney post “for personal reasons”, and Siraj Khan, who trained as a barrister and was called to the bar in 2010. More on the SLCC’s board membership and what it takes to be a law complaints quangocrat can be found in an earlier article from January 2011, here : More ‘jobs for the boys’ than action on ‘crooked lawyers’ : What it takes to be a Board Member at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission

One Scottish Government insider commenting on the SLCC’s latest recruitment drive said the ‘mad rush’ by some to join the SLCC had been expected as many of those already on quangos or in other highly paid-for-by-the-public positions appeared to fear for their current jobs and were actively seeking out additional equally highly paid positions on other quangos.

He said : “I’m sure the remuneration package including £212 a day and access to expenses claims facilities of up to £15,000 a year played a big part in the stampede to sit on the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s board, particularly considering quite a few of the applications came in from individuals already on quangos or in other positions which they expected to shortly lose.”

He continued : “After all, the SLCC is well known to have done nothing for three years so its basically money for nothing. Maybe the SLCC should replace their logo with a pound sign so the public don't get any false impressions about what they are really all about.”

A legal insider who was aware of the SLCC’s recruitment drive said : “We knew there were a few campaigners and those with consumer slants in the pot, however they never stood a chance because you have to remember what type of recruit the SLCC were actually seeking. Nothing controversial and obviously only those acceptable to the Law Society please.”

You can tell we are in the middle of a recession when there is such a mad rush by some on those lists to join a quango which is supposed to be investigating complaints against the legal profession yet has been reported in the press as being pro-lawyer. Its also telling exactly who applied to join, not only the volume of applicants. An earlier attempt to recruit additional lay members to the SLCC’s board in 2009 (when other quangos & jobs were not under threat) backfired, after one of the current SLCC lay members threatened to resign then had second thoughts. I reported on this in an article in July 2009, here : SLCC appointments scandal 'humiliation' for Justice Secretary as MacAskill forced to abandon new lay member recruitment. Indeed, what a difference a recession, cuts to quangos, and cuts to public services makes.

Just to set the record straight, I was ‘encouraged’ by a solicitor to apply to join the SLCC in this latest round of non-lawyer appointments. However, after consultation with a well placed Scottish Government source, I chose not to, given the hostility of the SLCC’s chair & board towards myself & colleagues in the media, which has spilled over in emails to several institutions including the Scottish Information Commissioner.

I really do not feel I am able to work with or be associated with people who are supposed to be in positions of protecting consumers, but who in reality exhibit an unhealthy level of HATE, PREJUDICE & a willingness to twist facts, misrepresent issues, deny the release of information and intimidate those who work in the media and all the while, belittling & discriminating against those who have already fallen victim to the legal profession itself. Taking blood money for watching consumers fall victim to a corrupt regulatory process is not my idea of consumer protection or effective, honest & impartial regulation of legal services.

No more news of suicides please : SLCC’s new secret Master Policy research questionnaires are being handed out by Marsh. And on the subject of blood money, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has revealed in its March 2011 Board Minutes it will wait yet another month for new research into the suicide linked Master Policy, the Professional Indemnity Insurance Scheme operated by the Law Society of Scotland which insures all of Scotland’s lawyers and allows them to sleep at night while their regulators & insurers cover up their crimes against clients. The unpublished consultation & research which the SLCC apparently does not want the public to know about, probably to avoid any further controversial evidence, can be viewed in an earlier article I published, here : CENSORED : Scottish Legal Complaints Commission's secret new Master Policy & Guarantee Fund research 'shuts out' real victims of crooked lawyers

LEGAL PAID : Clients of legal aid lawyers should come forward with information on fake work claims & scams, say Scottish Legal Aid Board

Scottish Legal Aid Board asks for clients to tell on go-nowhere cases funded by legal aid. IF YOUR LAWYER IS ABUSING OR FALSIFYING CLAIMS FOR LEGAL AID FUNDS, COME TO US say the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) after clients of legal aid scandal solicitor Niels S Lockhart demanded an investigation by authorities into accusations by Legal Aid Chiefs exposed in a Sunday Mail newspaper investigation the solicitor made “unnecessary & excessive” claims for legal aid, while raking in over £600,000 in legal aid funds paid out of the public purse in over two years.

The announcement from the Scottish Legal Aid Board comes in response to a further article in the Sunday Mail newspaper reporting on the concerns of clients of solicitor Niels Lockhart. One client referred to in the latest Sunday Mail report on the Lockhart-Legal Aid scandal said he had been to Mr Lockhart’s offices on a staggering SEVENTEEN VISITS yet his case had not advanced.

However while SLAB are apparently now keen to speak to Mr Lockhart’s former clients over their concerns, it appears the board are also keen to stress they “saw nothing to indicate fraudulent practices” yet in an amazing contradiction, the board accused Mr Lockhart of making “unnecessary & excessive” claims for legal aid, accusations which in the eyes of many, clearly amount to abuse of public funds.

A spokesperson for the Scottish Legal Aid Board said on Friday : "During the Board's thorough scrutiny of Mr Lockhart's accounts we saw nothing to indicate fraudulent practices as opposed to what appeared to be unnecessary and unreasonable work. In addition, public money was protected because we only paid for work we were satisfied had actually been done and was necessary to advance the clients' cases. Any work thought not to be reasonable was not paid.”

“The issue here was that the work Mr Lockhart did was not consistent with the principle of working with "due regard to economy". For example, having an excessive number of meetings which did not advance a case. Where we thought there were too many meetings or meetings which were of no value, we did not pay Mr Lockhart for those meetings. In coming to these decisions, we had full access to the evidence on the case files.”

Keen to stress public funds had been “protected” from the solicitor who had claimed over £600,000 in legal aid funds in two years, SLAB’s spokesperson continued : “The key issue is that as a result of the work done by the Board in investigating this matter, we protected public funds and Mr Lockhart can no longer do legal aid work. The Board played an important role in trying to bring this matter to an end and achieved the best outcome for the taxpayer as Mr Lockhart can no longer do legal aid work.”

The statement ended, calling for Mr Lockhart’s former clients to contact SLAB with their concerns : “Should any former legal aid clients of NS Lockhart have information which would constitute fraudulent activity they can contact the Board or the Police about their concerns."

If clients of Mr Lockhart or indeed any clients of solicitors across Scotland have concerns about their cases and legal aid funding, I would urge them to approach the Scottish Legal Aid Board immediately, while also copying in their information & concerns to myself via scottishlawreporters@gmail.com to ensure positive action is taken in relation to legal aid abuses while also enabling the media to report on these matters and alert other clients to the potential dangers of using solicitors & law firms who abuse legal aid.

The latest report from the Sunday Mail :

THE CLAIM BLAME : Clients want probe into lawyer's Legal Aid scam

Apr 10 2011 Exclusive by Lauren Crooks, Sunday Mail

FORMER clients of rogue lawyer Niels Lockhart want police to probe his Legal Aid scam.Lockhart was banned from Legal Aid work after claiming £600,000 of taxpayers' cash in two years.

A Scottish Legal Aid Board report said he routinely made "unnecessary and excessive" claims. But the Law Society of Scotland took four years to act on the report and then cut a secret deal which allowed him to simply agree to stop claiming Legal Aid. Slab ruled there had been no criminality - but admitted they didn't speak to any of his clients.

Andrew Garland, 52, hired Lockhart to represent him in a compensation claim in 2009. The fees were paid by Legal Aid. He said: "I went to his office about 17 times and it was always the same. I was wasting my time because we were getting no further forward.

"Not once has SLAB been in touch - I can't believe it. If it's a case of them not having enough information, I'd be first in line to tell them what he was doing."

Another client, who asked not to be named, fumed: "I can't understand why the police haven't been involved with this. I was being called in and he would just read me a letter or something he could easily have done over the phone. "When I read the Sunday Mail's story, it all suddenly made sense."

Slab said Lockhart's tricks were "not appropriate to a competent and reputable solicitor" - but the 60-year-old continues to run his one-man firm in Kilmarnock.

I reported on the secret deal between the Law Society of Scotland, Scottish Legal Aid Board and the little known Legal Defence Union in an earlier article, reprinted below :

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.

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 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, a key error was made by the Legal Aid Board, who stunningly failed to interview any of Mr Lockhart’s clients despite SLAB’s claims 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.”

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.”

In the light of revelations by the media that solicitors have been able to quietly withdraw from the legal aid register after secret deals were struck between the Law Society of Scotland, the Scottish Legal Aid Board & the Legal Defence Union over irregularities which collectively, could run in to millions of pounds, the issue is likely to receive calls for a full investigation when the Scottish Parliament, now dominated by msps from the Scottish National Party, reconvenes for its next session.

The issue of abuse of legal aid may well be a test of the Scottish Government’s resolve to ensure legal aid is targeted towards those who actually need it, while also bringing into focus the Scottish Parliament’s ability to scrutinise the massive £150 million pound legal aid budget, where the pressure will be on to investigate why secret deals between elements of the legal profession can see a lawyer escape penalty for misusing funds, while benefits cheats regularly face criminal convictions or even jail for their actions in cheating the public purse.

Access to Justice ? Law Society's insurers Marsh UK linked to SIXTEEN YEAR Court of Session civil damages claim against Motherwell College

Marsh UK, the UK subsidiary of the US insurance firm Marsh & McLennan companies which saw some of its directors plead guilty as a result of an investigation by the New York District Attorney's Office of bid-rigging and price-fixing in the insurance industry has now been linked to Scotland's longest running civil damages action claim, now in its SIXTEENTH YEAR in the Court of Session, involving Motherwell College & North Lanarkshire Council after the local authority released details in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Court of Session judge Lord Woolman hears Scotland’s longest running civil damages claim. Now in its Sixteenth year in the Court of Session, fresh hearings in the long running civil damages claim in front of judge Lord Woolman began earlier on Tuesday of this week. M.Wilson v North Lanarkshire Council & Others (A1628/01) which has its origins in the mid 1990’s and brought about Scotland’s first civil law McKenzie Friend in late 2009, involves a sole party litigant, Mr Martin Wilson, a former Music lecturer of Motherwell College who, according to media reports was forced out of his job after sustaining severe back injuries during the course of his duties as a music lecturer during his time at the College in the 1990’s.

Responses obtained by Diary of Injustice in reply to Freedom of Information enquiries reveal that Marsh, the insurance firm who insure all members of Scotland’s legal profession without exception, now also insure North Lanarkshire Council, who operate Motherwell College.

An official from North Lanarkshire Council replying to an FOI request admitted : “I can advise that North Lanarkshire Council’s Insurance Brokers until 30 September 2007 were AON, and from 1 October 2007 this service has been provided by Marsh. I can advise also that Travellers Insurance Company Limited have provided employers liability cover for the whole period of your request.”

In what is now Scotland’s longest running civil damages claim, Mr Wilson, the party litigant, has been forced to represent himself after several of Scotland’s leading law firms suspiciously abandoned his case at the very last minute. Mr Wilson is facing North Lanarkshire Council and their indemnity insurers, Travelers Insurance Co Ltd who are both being represented in court by Edinburgh law firm Simpson & Marwick. Senior Counsel for Simpson & Marwick is Ian MacKay QC, Junior Counsel being Calum Wilson both of Compass Chambers.

Now, following further investigations by Diary of Injustice and despite the outrageous time it has taken for Scotland’s civil justice system to hear their testimony, hearings in the Court of Session have shown that many internationally acclaimed experts have supported the party litigant’s claims.

I first reported on Mr Wilson’s case late last year, here : FIFTEEN year wait for justice against Motherwell College marks poor state of Scotland’s ‘Victorian’ Justice System on European Civil Justice Day where legal insiders who attended previous court hearings reported that Mr Wilson, who had been put in the position of having to represent himself after several big name law firms, who were at the time & are currently all insured with Marsh UK, withdrew from Mr Wilson’s case at the last minute prior to scheduled hearings of the Proof. Mr Wilson had also encountered repeated & numerous refusals of ‘expert witnesses’ from Scotland to assist his case as long as he was unrepresented. As a party litigant without representation, Mr Wilson was, according to court observers, forced abroad to Japan and the United States for supportive expert medical reports.

According to court documents seen by Diary of Injustice last October, Mr Wilson was previously represented by the well known Edinburgh law firm of Balfour & Manson, who were appointed by Scotland’s largest teachers & lecturers Union, the Educational Institute for Scotland (EIS), who spent tens of thousands of pounds assessing Mr Wilson’s injury as a valid claim, and that it should proceed to court. Amazingly it took the EIS almost THREE YEARS to lodge the summons against Motherwell College.

Papers studied by legal insiders reporting on the case revealed that Balfour & Manson, after being appointed by the EIS spent a staggering EIGHT YEARS working on Mr Wilson’s injury claim, and then at the last minute, decided to withdraw from acting for their client with only weeks to go before scheduled Proof Hearings in the Court of Session.

Balfour & Manson’s withdrawal from acting for Mr Wilson then became a suspicious pattern followed by further four law firms, including the Glasgow based Harper Macleod also withdrawing at the last minute, some eighteen months after representing Mr Wilson. Harper McLeod claimed they had ‘suddenly discovered’ “a commercial difficulty” in that they had an annual retainer from Motherwell College for several years, and had represented the College in Mr Wilson’s Employment Tribunal hearing over his unfair dismissal, which Mr Wilson won on a unanimous decision. Motherwell College also appealed the Employment Tribunal decision on Mr Wilson’s case and lost again.

A further two legal firms took on Mr Wilson’s case and then were apparently persuaded to drop their client, amazingly even returning fees paid to them for their service.

Motherwell College squandered £300K of taxpayers money fighting a string of Tribunal hearings involving bullying allegations against lecturers which the College lost. A number of media reports, referred to in recent coverage of the case by Scottish Law Reporter, show Motherwell College were involved in a string of Employment Tribunal decisions the college lost during Richard Millham’s term as Principal of Motherwell College. Allegations in newspapers including the Sunday Mail reported that “In 1999, lecturer Martin Wilson won £4000 after a tribunal ruled he had been unfairly fired. He had a back injury and could not work. A close friend said : "He was targeted by Millham. There was a strong climate of fear, which is still there ."

According to Scottish Law Reporter who last year reported on the case, “From 1995-1998 Motherwell College opposed Mr Wilson's claim for Unfair Dismissal while on long term sickness leave and lost, to a unanimous decision. Undeterred Motherwell College appealed the decision, and lost again. This was the first of several high profile Employment Tribunal cases lost by the Board of Management of Motherwell College, often to unanimous decisions against it.”

Simpson & Marwick, who are representing Motherwell College & North Lanarkshire Council, are themselves famed for their representation of solicitors accused of professional negligence & client swindling, all supposedly covered by the Law Society of Scotland’s Master Policy Professional Indemnity Insurance Scheme, operated by Marsh to defend against negligence claims raised by clients. The Master Policy and its administration, operation was linked in 2009 to client suicides in an independent report published by the University of Manchester’s Law School.

One of Simpson & Marwick’s partners, Dr Pamela Abernethy famously appeared at the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee during 2008, telling msps that pleural plaques, an asbestos related condition, could actually be good for people. I reported on Dr Abernethy’s incredulous claims in September 2008, here : Insurance lawyers argue against laws to help asbestos victims asserting part of their suffering 'is a good thing'

Marsh UK, the British end of the gigantic US insurance operation appear to be linked to many insurance deals in the public & private sector, ranging from multiple services provided by local & national government including law & order, to the private sector. Marsh also enjoy a monopoly on the insurance of all solicitors in Scotland through the Law Society of Scotland’s ‘brutal enforcement’ of the Master Insurance Policy arrangements where all solicitors are required to pay into the professional indemnity insurance scheme if they want to practice any form of law.

Marsh appear to have heavy political influence in the UK, with Conservative Lord Ian Lang now the Chairman elect of Marsh & McLennan companies, according to his register of interests published as per his duties as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. Lord Lang joined the Marsh & McLennan board in 1997 and has assiduously refused all invitations to comment since news of the 'Marsh Frauds' broke, frauds which were accompanied by valid injury and disability claims being routinely denied. More on Lord Lang’s position at Marsh & McLennan and his career history, along with documents detailing serious allegations against many directors of Marsh including Lord Lang, can be viewed at Scottish Law Reporter, HERE

This reporter and the Scottish Law Reporters team will continue to follow this case closely.

Voting on 5th May ? Keep in mind Scotland's Justice system remains far too dishonest, far too "Victorian", for independence from the UK

In case you didn't notice, there is an election in Scotland tomorrow, May 5 2011. If you are eligible to vote, it is your privilege, right & duty to do so, no matter how cynical or critical you are of our politicians, the justice system, Scotland's economy or even if you have a beef with the coalition Government at Westminster. However, as you are probably here to read topics of justice, rather than politics, there are some things you may wish to take into account before casting your vote ...

The short version of what I am about to say is “If you are here looking for advice on who to vote for, vote for a party other than those leading the polls so at least there’s a chance of the winners being held to account, and reigned in on any daft, crazy policies which will ultimately do Scotland a great deal of harm.” Remember, Annabel isn’t so bad after all, and unlike some this time around, she does make a lot of sense.

Now, the dreaded long version. One thing which has been glaringly obvious over the past four years since 2007, and indeed much longer than that, probably going back to the 're-imagined' Scottish Parliament of 1999, is that our beloved Scottish justice system is simply not up to the mark, not up to any real level of honesty, in fact, perhaps our beloved Scottish justice system is up to far too much dishonesty to merit & justify Scotland's independence from the rest of the UK. I mean, really, what use to Scots is independence if the justice system is bent ? None, as far as I can see, and as we know, the justice system has more bends in it than a corkscrew hazel tree.

Individuals and entire groups or classes of people have been discriminated or prejudiced against at the hands of the Scottish justice system, some even thrown in jail for crimes they did not commit, others persecuted by the very legal system itself for daring to criticise it, stand up to it, take issue with their own circumstances by demanding a fair hearing, and there are of course, even those who have suffered at the hands of the legal profession itself, who have used the law & courts as a weapon to deny anyone they do not like, access to justice. It happened yesterday, it will happen today, and it will happen tomorrow.

While the arguments & excuses still rage over the now famous Cadder v HMA ruling at the Supreme Court in London in October 2010, you only need to look back to the Cadder case and what happened to understand that the Government of the day in Scotland, in this case, the SNP, and indeed all previous administrations believed it was right for anyone arrested by Police to be questioned without a lawyer present. Good for a quick guilty verdict of course, saves a lot of detective work and of course a lot of money along the way for the likes of the Legal Aid Board.

Amazingly while such a highly dubious arrangement of interrogating suspects has not been practised in the rest of the UK, and indeed quite a few countries around the world for many years (some jurisdictions would call such interrogation without a lawyer "unconstitutional"), no one in the Scottish legal establishment bothered to raise it as a case until the European Court ruled in Salduz v Turkey and made the law as it now stands.

Did a Scottish court react to this change in European Law first, considering there must surely have been a few outstanding incidents where people were denied access to a lawyer while being held by the authorities ? No. After the European ruling, it took a court based in England, the UK's Supreme Court to rule on the Cadder case, and decide Scots, like everyone else in the rest of the UK and many other jurisdictions, had the right to a lawyer being present while being interrogated by the authorities.

Take it from me, Scotland's Court of Session would never have done the same. Indeed, this is exactly why the Cadder case ended up in the Supreme Court in London, because the Court of Session thought it was fine (and I dare say would like it still to be fine) to hold someone, whether guilty or not, and get an admission without the right to having a lawyer present. Easy money for the judges, the prosecution team, and someone put away with a protracted press release touting yet another "successful prosecution" and triumph for the authorities. Great, until someone realises the wrong person is behind bars.

If the Supreme Court had not ruled as it did, as Scots, we would still not have the right to a lawyer being present during interrogation, and the courts would be fine with it, but of course Cadder and its outcome goes much further than that, sending a shot across the bows of Scotland's antique justice system where the right to a fair hearing, the right to legal representation, or even the right to have funding for legal representation all appear to be a right too far those in the legal establishment who sometimes feel it is in the interests of the justice system to deny justice to certain individuals or cases.

If we were independent, you can kiss goodbye to the Supreme Court in London. If not immediately, certainly when it issues another controversial ruling requiring Justice-Secretary-for-Life Kenny MacAskill to change the law. You might also kiss goodbye to certain parts or maybe all of European Commission Human Rights Legislation (ECHR) which any future independent Scottish Government may begin to find 'inconvenient' to its management, or as we have seen in the past four years, lack of management of Scotland's justice system.

For another comparison of recent events in the English justice system compared to our own, look at the death of Ian Tomlinson, who, a jury in London yesterday decided had been "unlawfully killed" by the actions of a Police Officer. Does anyone really think a Sheriff presiding over a Fatal Accident Inquiry in Scotland would have came to such a decision in a similar case had some Policeman did the same north of the border ? Fat Chance, and we all know it. The bereaved family would be fighting for justice for years, and they themselves would probably end up being victimised by the legal system for daring to take issue with it.

Look around the Scottish justice system and you will see a litany of miscarriages of justice, where for instance, the say so of dubious witnesses or even Police Officers themselves have contributed to guilty verdicts and long sentences of 'the so-obviously guilty', only to be found later the investigation was compromised, perhaps even evidence was falsified, and those dubious witnesses lied through their teeth. Result : Someone ends up being freed after 12 years in jail for a crime they didn't commit and spends the rest of their life trying to clear their name while politicians sit back, promise much yet do little, and all the while the court, the judges, the legal system carrys on regardless.

How about the Lockerbie case and the long running controversy over the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi's conviction & release. Despite all the calls for independent inquiries, calls for, & half hearted attempts at the release of documents to answer the many inconsistencies in the case, nothing has changed other than the fact Mr Megrahi was released back to Libya on compassionate grounds by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, so conveniently avoiding any further progress in Mr Megrahi's appeal at the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh, where the gritted teeth of the judges (one looked like he had bruxism) was much more obvious to most who saw the spectacle rather than any hope the court would turn its attention to matters at hand and quash a verdict which many around the world question. Last time I checked, this farce happened under an SNP administration.

How about Legal Aid ? If you really need it, do you think you might really get it ? It appears if the Scottish Legal Aid Board don't like the look of your face, or someone, perhaps a someone of very high standing or position in the legal system puts in a bad word for you, perhaps accompanied by a long poisoned pen letter saying why you shouldn't get legal aid, you don't get it. No legal aid for you, therefore no access to a lawyer and no access to justice.

Yet over the past four years, certain lawyers as I previously reported, have been claiming hundreds of thousands of pounds of legal aid for themselves, collectively, millions of pounds, yet many of their clients never really had access to justice, and guess what ? the Scottish Government just let it happen. Yes, all those millions of pounds of legal aid, paid for by taxpayers, ended up lining the pockets of a few solicitors who were never prosecuted for one penny of misuse of public funds, rather than that legal aid going to those who really needed it, or to those lawyers who really do represent their clients.

How about the much heralded Scottish civil courts review by Lord Gill, the big "sea change" for our "Victorian" justice system which was supposed to give access to justice for all ? The Civil Courts Review has said much but achieved little under the SNP. Admittedly though, the same could well have been true no matter which political party was in power. Lord Gill's "groundbreaking" Civil Courts Review is now just another piece of history in the shattered landscape of Scotland's justice system, a review which itself is now being reviewed, and all the trappings of easier access to justice which many expected to come from it, are but a pipe dream.

Do you think independence might change all that ? No. The same people who still rave about independence did nothing about clearing up the justice system in the past four years and did nothing about giving justice to those who are denied it. These same people will do nothing to clear up Scotland’s justice system. In fact, some of those raving about independence and taking back the oil wealth for Scotland, have in some cases I am privy to, actively blocked access to justice for many people denied it .. even some of their own constituents. To be sure, the only constant here in Scotland is, "Nothing Changes" when it comes to justice.

As an observation from someone who has seen many cases where the legal system has been used as a weapon against those who take it on, or those who dispute the legal establishment's line on all things justice, Scotland's justice system is probably worse off now than it was in 2007, and that's saying something. All of those people who said the system will change with a new party in power after 2007, where are they now ? Still fighting the same battles, still arguing over the finer points of detail and still knee deep in inquiries which will end up changing nothing.

It is certainly not my job to tell you who to vote for, but you must vote if you want to have a say in Scotland's political future. By this, I'm not telling you not to vote for the SNP, and I'm not telling you to vote Labour, Scottish Conservative or Liberal Democrat, or Independent, or Green or for any of the other parties out there, but I am asking you TO VOTE, and to ensure that consensus politics, fairness and even justice is delivered in this next Scottish Parliament.

Make the next five years Scotland's five years, make the next five years your five years to give all Scots a say in our country, access to justice, and the right to be heard against those groups & vested interests who regularly talk over or even interdict our expectations of reforms, jobs, financial security, justice and life for the better. If you want to be part of something positive, vote, and vote to make sure those who you elect are held accountable to you.