The Scottish Executive has failed with a landmark bid to block the release of highly sensitive documents explaining why Scotland's "closed shop" for legal services has never been opened up to competition.
A Court of Session ruling yesterday should force the disclosure of correspondence on the subject between senior politicians, lawyers and officials.
They include the late First Minister Donald Dewar, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and former Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg.
In a 26-page ruling, the Lord President, Lord Hamilton, together with Lord Nimmo Smith and Sir David Edward, dismissed the executive's arguments that certain documents were exempted from disclosure under the freedom of information legislation.
They made the same ruling in a second case in which the executive refused to disclose documents, requested by The Herald, concerning plans to dump waste in a protected Scottish quarry.
Both cases are a triumph for the Scottish information commissioner Kevin Dunion, who had ordered ministers to publish the documents.
Mr Dunion welcomed the decision, saying: "This is an important judgment in my favour. The court has agreed it was wrong of the executive to conclude that it would be harmful to release information which it characterised as belonging to a class or type - for example, advice to ministers - without regard to the content of that information. I have consistently maintained this is not what parliament intended."
The decision is also a victory for Bill Alexander, a longstanding campaigner for wider consumer access to legal services. Last year, Mr Alexander used freedom of information legislation to seek disclosure of ministerial correspondence and memoranda from the past decade concerning the enduring ban on people other than solicitors and advocates being paid to represent clients in the Scottish courts.
"I am pleased the law has been clarified. Hopefully, everyone can now move forward in getting greater access to justice for the people of Scotland," he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article