Summary
Much has been written in the wake of controversial judgments from the Supreme Court concerning Scottish cases. The Cadder ruling on a lawyer being present during a police interview of a suspect involved the over-ruling of a unanimous seven-judge bench decision of a Scottish Court and brought Scotland up to date with the rest of Europe. Consideration of that case will find an analysis which, with regret expressed, finds the choice taken by Scots Law in 1980 was a wrong turn and for the wrong reasons.
The Scottish Justices of the Supreme Court lay out in the clearest possible terms that Scots Law, prior to this change, had respected the rights of suspects to consult their advisors. The threadbare reasoning provided by the Thompson Committee for the dilution of that right - that suspected criminals may rely upon their rights - does not hold up in modern day Scotland, never mind modern day Europe.See the full content of this document
Extract
Why Supreme Court Is Good for Scots Law
In Nat Fraser's appeal, human rights considerations were not allowed to be argued before the Scottish Court. It decided his appeal upon the application of what could be charitably termed traditional grounds of appeal. The Supreme Court applied uncontroversial human rights considerations to arrive at a relatively unsurprising conclusion....
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