WHEN the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) referred the Lockerbie case back for a fresh appeal in June 2007 they were only able to publish a summary of their findings.
At that stage if they had published the full report they could have been prosecuted. Legally their hands were tied.
In an effort to get the report published, the Scottish Government passed a statutory instrument, which meant it would no longer be a criminal act for the SCCRC to publish such reports.
However, the 821-page document was still bound by Freedom of Information and Data Protection legislation.
The commission wrote to the individuals mentioned in the report asking for their consent for publication.
Consent was not given. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi said he would agree if the Crown did. Ultimately, however, the Crown did not.
To try to get the report into the public domain, ministers brought forward legislation to ease publication.
This should be enacted in May but because of the status of the SCCRC, they are still bound by Data Protection legislation.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill has written to UK Justice Secretary Ken Clarke to ask for an exemption under Data Protection.
The Herald is the first newspaper to have had access to the report.
Five years on it is finally closer to being aired.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article