Linda Fabiani fears mud-slinging and leaks could deter women coming forward with complaints of sexual harassment.
The outgoing East Kilbride MSP has just overseen one of the biggest inquiries in Scottish political history as convenor of the Salmond Inquiry.
She presided over a cross-party committee of MSPs that questioned how complaints of harassment against Alex Salmond were dealt with by the SNP, his former party.
At the High Court in Edinburgh last year, the former First Minister was cleared of sexually assaulting nine women whilst in office.
The committee has now made a series of stinging criticisms and recommendations in a report into the Scottish Government’s botched inquiry into the allegations.
But it is the actions of many surrounding the political sphere in Scotland that has left a lasting impression on Linda.
She told the East Kilbride News: “Our inquiry came up with strong views about how the government let down these women.
“Evidence was taken from the women in private, which was extremely brave of them, and I am absolutely disgusted that another committee member breached that confidence.”
Linda, who will not stand for re-election in May’s Holyrood election, was referring to a series of leaks of evidence given by the women who made the complaints against Mr Salmond, calling these a “breach of confidence”.
She added: “The biggest challenge was the frustration around the committee becoming overly-politicised.
“We had a lot of really important work to do regarding what went wrong and why the women who raised the complaints were so badly let down.
“But there was a committee meeting, then we were having leaks and other politicians were prejudging the findings which was frustrating.”
Both Mr Salmond and his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, gave evidence to the inquiry.
It concluded – by five votes to four – that Ms Sturgeon “misled” parliament over her dealings with her predecessor. However, an independent review by James Hamilton ruled Ms Sturgeon did not breach the ministerial code.
Linda said the time taken to get information together for the inquiry proved difficult, as did acquiring legal information from the Scottish Government and information from other main witnesses, including Mr Salmond, much of which was already in the public domain.
She told the News: “While the legal constraints we faced weren’t a challenge – they were in place to protect the women involved – people ignoring them was.
“We had the scenario of people going online and naming victims, which was just awful - and instead of helping women come forward, they may now be less likely to do so.
“It became tougher because we had to wait until after the court case till we could get started properly and with three or four committees a week, it was very time consuming.”
She also criticised opposition leaders for “prejudging” the inquiry during First Minister’s questions on a weekly basis “giving the wrong idea” over its importance, branding the Scottish Tories vote of no confidence in Nicola Sturgeon as “politically motivated”.
Ms Fabiani added: “The main element the committee was working on was the implementation of the sexual harassment policy by the government.
“At the same time, another independent review into the ministerial code was going on. My view was to let James Hamilton get on with that so we could get on with trying to make things better for women in the future.
“I’m not saying the policy was wrong, but the way it was implemented was wrong and I’m concerned this could impact on women coming forward with complaints of sexual harassment.
“Whatever the Scottish Government is after the election, they need to take seriously the recommendations made so women can come forward with confidence.
“And when that government needs to look at code of conduct issues for MSPs so people can be better served by parliamentary committees, they shouldn’t be as overtly political as that one became.”
