Section 9.7. The Crown Office and Procurator Service is the independent prosecution service of Scotland and a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government.
Please scrutinise all the proposed amendments and replies before commenting or voting. Short comments are most often read and must not exceed 100 words. You can propose an Amendment at the bottom of this page - please read the guidelines .
Note that the original wording appears again first below and sustains the same comment & voting regime as all other amendment proposals.
Section 9.7. Section 9.7. The Crown Office and Procurator Service is the independent prosecution service of Scotland and a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government.
Section 9.7. Valid point Caledonian, thanks. -that's part of the Consultation... But please read the Guidelines - your amendments should include a Headline - once amendments accumulate people will want to see at a glance what they are being asked to vote for. Otherwise perfectly valid points will miss out on the rankings.
Section 9.7. It may have been called the Crown Office for a very long time now but, even if we decide to keep the monarch, I see no reason to keep calling it that. This comment by Gordon Dangerfield is relevant:
"The fact is that the constitutional position of the Lord Advocate in Scotland is utterly untenable. He is a Minister in the Scottish Government who attends and participates in Cabinet meetings and gives the Government secret and confidential legal advice and he is the head prosecutor of crimes, including, whenever necessary, the crimes of Scottish Government officials and politicians."
I've been told, officially, that COPFS is accountable to the Scottish Parliament, but I'm still waiting for an explanation of how that works in practice. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice might seem to be the person to oversee the COPFS but, in reality, that seems not to happen. Perhaps we need some lawyers (retired?) to pu their head above the parapet here and suggest a framework we might include.
Section 9.7. Section 9.7. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is the independent prosecution service of Scotland and a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government.
Proposed Amendments to Section
Please scrutinise all the proposed amendments and replies before commenting or voting. Short comments are most often read and must not exceed 100 words.
You can propose an Amendment at the bottom of this page - please read the guidelines .
Note that the original wording appears again first below and sustains the same comment & voting regime as all other amendment proposals.
Original Version
Section 9.7. Section 9.7. The Crown Office and Procurator Service is the independent prosecution service of Scotland and a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government.
Section 9.7. Procurator Fiscal, not procurator. Yet more ignorance or inattention to detail.
Section 9.7. Valid point Caledonian, thanks. -that's part of the Consultation... But please read the Guidelines - your amendments should include a Headline - once amendments accumulate people will want to see at a glance what they are being asked to vote for. Otherwise perfectly valid points will miss out on the rankings.
Section 9.7. What do you understand by a headline?
Section 9.7. It may have been called the Crown Office for a very long time now but, even if we decide to keep the monarch, I see no reason to keep calling it that. This comment by Gordon Dangerfield is relevant:
"The fact is that the constitutional position of the Lord Advocate in Scotland is utterly untenable. He is a Minister in the Scottish Government who attends and participates in Cabinet meetings and gives the Government secret and confidential legal advice and he is the head prosecutor of crimes, including, whenever necessary, the crimes of Scottish Government officials and politicians."
I've been told, officially, that COPFS is accountable to the Scottish Parliament, but I'm still waiting for an explanation of how that works in practice. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice might seem to be the person to oversee the COPFS but, in reality, that seems not to happen. Perhaps we need some lawyers (retired?) to pu their head above the parapet here and suggest a framework we might include.
Proposed Amendment to Section 9.7.
Section 9.7. Section 9.7. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is the independent prosecution service of Scotland and a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government.