THE Crown Office is facing questions after admitting it has no documents outlining the role of a “specialist prosecutor” it claimed would oversee cases linked to the proscribed group Palestine Action.
It comes despite Scotland’s Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain saying on August 18 that any cases “involving Palestine Action reported to the Procurator Fiscal will be considered by a specialist prosecutor, overseen by senior prosecutors”.
“The prosecutor will carefully examine whether there is sufficient evidence and determine what action, if any, should be taken in the public interest,” she added.
Bain’s statement came in response to concerns about the policing of pro-Palestine protests raised by the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC), who said there was a risk of breaches of human rights in Police Scotland’s arrest of activists under terror laws.
Andrew Thomson – one of the pro-Palestine activists facing terror charges after allegedly wearing a T-shirt with the slogan “Genocide in Palestine, time to take action” – put in a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to learn more about the specialist prosecutor position.
In documents shared with the Sunday National, Thomson asked the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) for “any document or recorded communication which outlines any of the responsibility specification, terms and conditions, remit, scope, objective(s) or intention(s) of the ‘specialist prosecutor’ and/or the ‘senior prosecutors’”.
In its response, COPFS admitted that “the information sought is not held”.
It further pointed to the statement from August 18 in which Bain announced the existence of the specialist prosecutor, as well as already public guidelines on policing protests.
Responding, Thomson asked: “How can it be that Bain refers to positions which, six weeks later, have no evidenced terms of reference?”
He went on: “The explicit failure to hold any written or recordable documentation or communication which outlines the new prosecutors' specification, their terms or conditions, remit, scope or objectives, now five weeks after Bain announced their setting up, would (if it were true) be an abject failure by the Crown Office and total abrogation of duty.
“There must now, however, be a serious question mark hanging over the existence and credibility of these roles.
“How on earth could you have the audacity to inform the head of Scotland's national and public institution responsible for the implementation of human rights, of your intent to use a new mechanism of scrutiny to address their concerns, but more than a month later, you have not even cobbled a few words of a job spec or remit together?”
The Scottish Human Rights Commission’s chair, Professor Angela O’Hagan, had warned that an “individual being arrested for the expression of views at a protest – including expressing support for a banned group – constitutes an interference under Article 10 ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights]”.
Article 10 guarantees the right to freedom of expression and the right to “hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority”.
Last week, Amnesty International said these rights mean that criminalising free speech is “only permitted when it incites violence or advocates hatred”.
“Expressing support for Palestine Action does not, in itself, meet this threshold,” the charity’s acting Scotland director Liz Thomson said.
Thomson said: “The fact remains, if there really is no plan in place to outline the scope and terms of reference for how these special prosecutors should act and balance human rights with the state shackles imposed by Westminster in the so-called 'Palestinian Action' cases, the SHRC need to escalate their concerns with both the Crown Office and Police Scotland.”
Thomson also asked to be told the names of the specialist and senior prosecutors, but the Crown Office refused on safety grounds.
“COPFS regularly records threats against its staff due to the role they carry out … Disclosure of names into the public domain would provide those intent on carrying out harm an opportunity to do so,” it said.
Last weekend, Police Scotland allowed a peaceful protest which saw around 100 people express support for Palestine Action to pass without confrontation. However, officers then pursued activists after the event, charging two with terror offences.
At a similar protest in London last Saturday, almost 900 arrests were made as clashes erupted between officers and the public.
