Sunday 3 June 2012

Boyd makes the Bench despite Pan Am 103 stain

[This is the headline over a report published on Friday on the website of Scottish lawyers’ magazine The Firm.  It reads in part:]

Former Lord Advocate has, as predicted earlier this year, been appointed as a Senator of the College of Justice and will become a High Court Judge.
The appointment comes despite ongoing concern over his role in the Pan Am 103 debacle, where further questions surrounding the actings of the Crown Office in relation to disclosure of material evidence continue to challenge the conviction. New revelations have come to light only this morning.
"That the Judicial Appointments Board should recommend to the First Minister that Lord Colin Boyd be appointed as a judge to the highest court in the land set new standards for being out of touch," campaigner Iain McKie said at the time his appointment was leaked.
Former MP Tam Dalyell said the appointment "should not inoculate Lord Boyd from the obligation to answer questions on Lockerbie over the period that he headed the Crown Office.
"The Crown Office, and I would have thought Lord Boyd in his position in the Crown Office, have an obligation to address powerful criticisms of non-disclosure."
The appointment comes on the day Lord Gill [currently Lord Justice Clerk, number two in the Scottish judicial hierarchy] was confirmed as the new Lord President. [RB: Many, many years ago I spent some of the happiest months of my life devilling to Brian Gill, then a junior counsel and an Advocate Depute, before I entered practice at the Scottish Bar.]

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