The Scottish Conservatives will lead a parliamentary debate next week calling on the Scottish Government to publish legal advice they received in the Alex Salmond case.
The Daily Record reports a Holyrood vote is due to be held and all opposition parties are supporting the calls for the advice to be released.
A special Holyrood committee was established after Mr Salmond objected to the way harassment complaints had been handled and took successful civil legal action against the government.
A judicial review found that the process had been “tainted with apparent bias” and Mr Salmond received more than £500,000 in taxpayers’ cash to meet his legal costs.
The Scottish Government has previously defied calls to hand over legal advice to the Alex Salmond inquiry.
John Swinney, Deputy First Minister, suggested it would not be in the “public interest” to waive the Scottish Government’s right to legal privilege to share the information about the civil court case involving Mr Salmond.
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said the Conservatives were calling for the debate to ask the government to “finally come clean” and publish the advice.
He said: “The stakes are high. Either we have a Scottish Parliament and committee system that holds the government to account. Or we stand by and let the government lose more than £500,000 of taxpayers’ money, then watch as they cover it up and hide the reason why this abysmal failure happened.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Successive Scottish and UK Governments have not disclosed the source or content of legal advice other than in the most exceptional circumstances.
“Legal privilege is inherent to the functioning of good government and the rule of law. It’s important that the legal advice which Ministers and their officials receive is full and frank, and not affected by concerns about it subsequently becoming public.”
