Professor Jim Hunter, a leading authority on the history of crofting, recently Tweeted: “ There are good people among all the groupings involved in the current crofting fracas, but it's become an awful mess.”
Professor Mark Shucksmith, director of Newcastle University’s Institute for Social Renewal who chaired the Scottish Government’s Committee of Inquiry on Crofting, responded: “A sorry state of affairs indeed. Sad for all involved.”
They have been champions of crofting for decades.
Their sadness at the row between the Crofting Commission and two local grazings committees on Lewis is shared by all who recognise crofting is why people still managed to live in much of the Highlands and Islands over the last century or so.
There is confusion over what happened for the committees in Upper Coll and Mangersta to be sacked by the commission, and replaced by "constables".
Lawyers and crofters have alleged the commission is acting beyond its powers, or even illegally.
The Scottish Crofting Federation talks of its “bafflement” and its estimable chairwoman Fiona Mandeville says the commission “seems to have lost all sense of reason”.
However other individual crofters have expressed their support for the commission. The stakes are being raised.
An application is being prepared for the Scottish Land Court and there are calls for an inquiry into the commission.
Grazing committees manage the common grazings, the areas shared by local crofters for livestock. Local crofters are shareholders and elect the grazing committee members. The committees are integral to the system, and others across the crofting counties are now worried.
In the past civil servants in Edinburgh were accused of being behind any ill-considered move.
But in April 2012 the new Crofting Commission took over the regulatory role of the old appointed Crofters Commission. Six of the nine commissioners were themselves to be crofters, directly elected by other crofters.
It makes the commission the only quasi-judicial body in the land to be elected.
So the present dispute is largely between the crofters on the committees and those on the commission. The latter have their own lawyers, not to mention their own life experience of crofting. So they are not acting out of ignorance, and why on earth would they act out of malice?
The dispute centres on whether legislation requires committees to distribute any income to those crofters who are shareholders in the common grazings, rather than the committees' view it as a resource for local investment instead. The commission believes this is contrary to the letter of crofting law, and may well be right. However it has refused to explain its apparently new approach, because these are “live” cases.
But are they, now "constables" have been appointed? The crofting community needs to understand what has happened. The issue was discussed at the commission meeting of December 9, but the relevant section of the minutes remains confidential. It should now be published as a first step.
Another crofting bill is expected in the new parliament and may have to further address the problems this has raised.
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