The dogged persistence of alert Wings contributor Benjamin Harrop with regard to the Hamilton inquiry has been truly heroic, and today it has borne fruit in dramatic style.
The 10-page adjudication from the Scottish Information Commissioner that you can download by clicking that image is a somewhat labyrinthine (but fascinating) read, but the upshot of it is that the Commissioner has now ordered the Scottish Government to release all of the legal advice it was given with regard to its refusal to publish the written evidence submitted to James Hamilton for his inquiry into the events around the alleged conspiracy to falsely convict Alex Salmond of sexual assaults.
(See, even that one-sentence summary was quite hard going.)
But why does that matter and what does it mean?
While this judgement does not in itself compel the Scottish Government to disclose the actual evidence – that judgement is still in process – the order to release the legal advice is in itself very significant, as the Scottish Government has a well-documented and dreadful record when it comes to listening to its own legal advice on this subject.
The legal advice will therefore be extremely interesting in its own right. But today’s judgement would also appear to be a very encouraging sign with regard to the decision over publishing the Hamilton evidence.
The Commissioner has expressly found the matter to be of such great public interest that it outweighs the normal exemptions allowing the Government to refuse FOI requests, and it’s to be hoped that that logic extends to the written evidence in the same way. That decision should arrive quite soon, and it should (and will) be making some people very nervous indeed.
