The SNP are uniting the nation but not in the way they once hoped.
Facing increasing opposition on a host of fronts, the latest challenge to their increasingly autocratic and embattled rule comes from one of the most ancient pillars of the Scottish establishment; lawyers.
The Aberdeen Bar Association has joined those of Edinburgh and Glasgow in boycotting plans for a pilot scheme of juryless rape trials.
Stuart Murray, vice president of the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association, said on Tuesday that associations in Dundee, Airdrie, Falkirk and Paisley had also joined the backlash.
Lawyers have called the proposals “a danger” and charged the Scottish Government with “political meddling”.
The plans emerged recently under proposals for a new Justice Reform Bill, along with moves to end the not proven verdict.
It’s ironic that our own Scottish government, which constantly berates Westminster for interfering in our affairs, is the one undermining our centuries-old legal traditions.
Legal profession opposes juryless rape trials
One former senior judge Lord Uist called the plans for juryless rape trials “constitutionally repugnant“.
He says ministers are “treating the courts as forensic laboratories in which to experiment with their policies”.
Meantime the President of the Aberdeen Bar Ian Woodward-Nutt says the proposals are an attempt to “engineer” higher conviction rates in rape cases.
He says: “It is essential to understand that in many rape cases it is hard for the prosecution to prove a case beyond reasonable doubt.”
SSBA statement on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill pic.twitter.com/YhOzaFCpmg
— Scottish Solicitors Bar Association (@scotscrimbar) April 28, 2023
The crime of rape is a grave and heinous one. And wanting to ensure those guilty of it are convicted is entirely laudable.
But the way to increase the rate of successful prosecution isn’t by denying those accused of it a hearing before their peers.
By the nature of the jury system its members are drawn from a wide variety of social backgrounds. They will collectively have a much wider experience of life and all its grim vagaries than many judges.
And the irony cannot be lost on folk that the SNP is proposing this ill-thought out move under the guise of better protection for women.
This, after all, is the party that tried to place a transgender rapist, who was found guilty of raping two women while he identified as a man, in a women’s prison.
In that case, its cavalier actions were only halted when the court of public opinion forced it to back down.
Are juryless rape trials another nail in the SNP’s coffin?
The juryless rape trials issue is symptomatic of a party in crisis and out of touch.
Senior figures are under police investigation, while opponents claim areas such as health, education, and the island ferries, among other things, are being run appallingly.
Instead of actual achievement, accomplishment, and attainment we have had blether, bombast and boast from those in power at Holyrood, while the contingent in Westminster have achieved very little.
A lack of maturity, wisdom, and inability to accommodate alternative views has damaged the standing of the Scottish Parliament; and fatally wounded any imminent hopes of independence.
Surely many of the folk, who were once persuaded that an independent country might be worth striving for, did not embark on that journey aiming for a future where the aim was to be just slightly less venal or incompetent than elsewhere.
Instead of building a New Caledonian Jerusalem, Scottish politics under the SNP has descended into a bitter cesspit, where compromise and mature debate is an alien concept.
Many in the legal sector have serious concerns about the Scottish Government's plans for juryless trials. I raised these directly with the new Justice Secretary👇 pic.twitter.com/bmqXMOW6yI
— Jamie Greene MSP (@jamiegreeneUK) May 2, 2023
Ill-thought out proposals, such as scrapping a jury system which has stood the test of time, are just further evidence of a party and a government bereft of energy and any real intellectual capability or rigour.
The game is up for them.
Ineptitude and duplicity can only be masked for so long.
With polls pointing to a big Labour victory at the next general election, many SNP MPs could be swept away.
If that happens then the next election at Holyrood may see them suffer a similar fate.
And if that comes to pass they will only have themselves to blame.
