Alex Salmond was forced to defend his justice secretary’s handling of legislation to scrap corroboration in criminal trials yesterday.
The first minister said he had full confidence in Kenny MacAskill as he came under pressure to justify the government’s handling of the controversial proposal to scrap a cornerstone of the criminal justice system.
On Wednesday, Mr MacAskill announced stage two of the Criminal Justice Bill will be delayed until Lord Bonomy has reported back on safeguards to prevent possible miscarriages of justice by doing away with the requirement for two corroborating pieces of evidence.
His decision followed criticism from the legal profession and opposition parties against the passage of the bill without safeguards. During first minister’s questions, Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont questioned whether Mr MacAskill could stay in his job after he had made such an “embarrassing climbdown”.
She branded his handling of the issue as “disgraceful” and said it was doubtful he could achieve a consensus on the legislation while he was in post. Mr Salmond said Mr MacAskill had agreed to opposition requests to “look again at delaying the legislation” until after Lord Bonomy’s report.
“Given that was done, would it not be gracious and reasonable for the Labour party to try and focus on the issue, the issue hopefully all of us want to secure, that is access to justice for people who have been subjected to some of the vilest crimes in Scotland?” he said.
When Ms Lamont demanded to know if Mr Salmond still had “full confidence” in his justice secretary, Mr Salmond replied with one word – “Yes”.
Mr Salmond said under Mr MacAskill there were 1,000 extra police officers, recorded crime was down 35%, crimes of handling offensive weapons were down 60% and “above all, people’s fear of crime in Scotland is dropping for the first time”.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said Mr MacAskill’s judgment was being questioned and mentioned other contentious issues such as his decision to free the Lockerbie bomber and his handling of the single police force.
“This justice secretary’s judgment is being openly questioned by his colleagues as well as his opponents,” she said.