REACTION: What legal experts say

Chief Reporter

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Professor Neil Hutton, expert in sentencing at Strathclyde University

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Lucy Adams

"The Herald investigations have identified questions raised in the report which need to be addressed. The Scottish Government should give serious consideration to setting up some form of public inquiry."

James Chalmers senior lecturer in law at Edinburgh University

"Ideally, there would still be a further appeal, and if questions are left unanswered at the end of that process then an inquiry may be necessary to restore public confidence. What matters most is doing justice in the case itself, which clearly still has some way to run." Jonathan Mitchell QC "I think there is a public interest in the disclosure of all of this and complete transparency. We have to put this out in the public domain." Professor Lindsay Farmer of Glasgow University "There was a sense at the time when the trial was completed that it had been a major challenge for the Scottish criminal justice system and that it was completed successfully. The issues that are now coming to light raise questions about whether this was in fact the case. It would be better to have this out in the open now rather than continuing to sweep it under the carpet. This is not going to go away." A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "We have shown consistently that we want to be as open and transparent as we can be on all aspects surrounding the Al-Megrahi case. That is why we have brought forward the Criminal Cases (Punishment and Review) Bill to aid publication of the Statement of Reasons. "It is in the public interest that the Statement of Reasons is published as soon as possible and we are doing all that we can for this to happen. "With virtually every passing day, more and more of the content of the SCCRC's Statement of Reasons in the Al-Megrahi case comes into the public domain. Ministers firmly believe that this selective reporting of the information only emphasises the importance of the SCCRC being able to decide to disclose information in the Al-Megrahi case. "The Justice Secretary has written again to Ken Clarke to provide an update on how the SCCRC can comply with data protection and make the road clearer for disclosure."

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REACTION: What legal experts say

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