Thursday, March 09, 2006

Peter Cherbi & the Scottish Parliament cross swords

I thought I would do this article before the 'Cherbi hating brigade' over at the Scottish Parliament remove some of the material relating to my case ...
So, what did I achieve over at the Scottish Parliament ?
Well, the answer is, together with all the clients of crooked lawyers, some disaffected members of the legal profession, and Scotland's best campaign group against crooked lawyers (Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers) .. we have, it seems, secured a victory, where self regulation of lawyers - that is, crooked lawyers investigating crooked lawyers, and letting them get away with it .. is going to the dustbin of history, and we will have some form of independent regulation for the Scottish legal profession next year in 2007....

There is still much work to do though, as although the Law Society of Scotland have accepted there will be independent regulation of lawyers & advocates .. they are determined to keep ahold of the prosecution of offences, together with administering disciplinary punishments ... which is kind of like an individual being investigated for a murder, then having a panel of their assailants prosecute them for the murder and pass their sentence ..... sounds like a 'bit of a catch', doesn't it ?!! .... so we have to keep campaigning to ensure that the new system of independent regulation which we have campaigned for so long will be completely transparent, with no fiddles and no pals of the lawyers involved in getting their colleagues off charges .. but with all the back door deals going on at the moment between the Law Society top brass and the Justice Minister's office at the Scottish Executive .... it certainly isn't going to be easy ...

Anyway, the history of my involvement with the Scottish Parliament is all on record ...

In 1999, we campaigned for the then Justice & Home Affairs Committee to look into the issue of regulation of the legal profession, and virtually all it's members at the time, including my own regional MSP, Euan Robson, of Kelso, told us to f*ck off, we're not discussing the issue.... They simply weren't interested in looking at the matter.
The arguement got so intense between us clients of crooked lawyers and the Clerks to the then Justice & Home Affairs Committee, some of the snot nosed crooked Clerks banned us from communicating with Committee Members, told us our letters would be ripped up, would go unacknowledged, etc .... Yes - it is true ... how about that for Parliamentary democracy at the Scottish Parliament ? ... ask a Committee to look at something - get told to "drop dead" .. point out their mistakes, then have embargos placed on you for writing to the politicians who make up that Committee ??? sounds like Nazi Germany, right ?? yep ... and in fact, it coined the phrase in some circles - "The Scottish Reichstag" ... and with, what was described by one journalist at the time as "sewer quality Committee Clerks" .... it wasn't surprising ...

What actually got up the goat of the Justice & Home Affairs Committee was that I had asked why there were members on that Committee who were hooked into the legal profession - Roseanna Cunningham - lawyer, Maureen McMillan - married to the Boss of the Law Society of Scotland's "Scottish Parliament Liason Committee" !!!!!, Lord James Douglas Hamilton QC ... etc etc ... yep, they hated my guts for that one .. and when everyone else started asking questions .. the issue was completely canned ... how twisted ! - just like what their pals do over at the Law Society of Scotland when it comes to investigating complaints into crooked lawyers ...

Of course, I didn't give up ... and after being dumped by my MSP, Euan Robson - who was useless, anyway, and who actually sent me a letter demanding that I drop my complaints against his pal constituent Andrew Penman !!!!! I moved to Phil Gallie, who tirelessly campaigned to get the new Justice & Home Affairs Committee 1 to look at the matter, to which he was successful, with Mr Gallie informing me in January 2001 of this (you will see this in a later article in this blog .. probably next week-ish, if I can manage to keep the timeline intact ! )

So, without further ado .. here are my various contributions to the debate on self-regulaion of the legal profession .. which the Justice & Home Affairs Committee 1 completely ruined, after the removal of Phil Gallie (by his own party) from the Committee when he started asking tricky questions .... I will tell you all more about this in the later article ... and what turned out to be very crooked goings on over that the Scottish Parliament ...

The links are to the Scottish Parliament's own website, and my submissions are in Adobe Acrobat format ... what they do, is back up what I have said on this site, and what has happened to so many others like me and you ....
The actual report by the Justice & Home Affairs Committee 1 is here at : http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/historic/justice1/reports-02/j1r02-11-vol01-01.htm

When reading the list of submissions, be careful .. there are a few in from the legal profesion full of lies and twists to throw oft the Committee and the press from looking at the issue further .... more to come on that though soon ...

Something that was kind of related to my experiences at the hands of the Justice & Home Affairs Committee 1 ...
My submission about members interests to the Standards Committee :
many of my comments in this submission were aimed at those connected with the legal profession ... and just look what happened to one of them, a party leader .. not long after .... *taxi taxi* ..... !!

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