If there is one area in which Scotland has consistently excelled, it is crime.
With an astonishing 246,480 recorded incidents last year, it is difficult to fathom how a relatively small country can commit so much of it.
With that in mind, the prospect of lawyers at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) going on strike is not
something that is even worth contemplating.
As Conservative MSP and Justice Committee convener Margaret Mitchell points out, they are the “bulwark of our criminal justice system” and when they get under pressure “everything gets under pressure”.
Without procurators fiscal to assess and prosecute the endless stream of accused who come before our courts, police can’t do their jobs, custody cells become over-run, competent charges can’t be made against serious criminals, and thousands of active cases simply lapse.
It is a nightmare scenario, and yet that is exactly the one the Sunday Mail today reveals staff at this crucial agency are increasingly motivated to support as a result of a long-running pay dispute now coming to a head.
While public sympathy for already well-salaried solicitors is unlikely to be found in abundance, the COPFS lawyers’ demands appear to be straight-forward and fair.
Their pay has fallen behind that of their colleagues in the Scottish Government – whose job is arguably less publicly accountable and stressful – and they simply want this gap to be closed.
The Government is understood to have been aware of the growing anger for some time and yet nothing has been done.
It is not the only problem at a prosecution service that has been creaking under the strain of years of austerity cuts.
Budgets are understood to have been slashed by more than 20 per cent in real terms from their peak of about £118million a decade ago.
This newspaper has never shied away from exposing failings in our justice system and that will continue.
From the shocking death of Allan Marshall in Saughton Prison, to the horrifying number of youth suicides behind bars and failings in the death of Sheku Bayoh, there are too many to mention.
But none of these are the fault of the overwhelming majority of hard-working police and prosecutors, who deserve respect and praise for keeping our streets safe.
It seems in the case of COPFS lawyers an injustice has been allowed to develop and it should be remedied quickly rather than allowed to fester.
