Serious doubts have been raised about the dual role of Scotland’s top law officer after it emerged that the first minister was informed of criminal charges against Peter Murrell nearly a year before they were made public. The lord advocate, Dorothy Bain, who acts as Scotland’s chief prosecutor as well as the government’s principal legal adviser in cabinet, has faced calls to resign, though the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service maintains she was acting in line with her duties.
On Tuesday, the Crown Office released a list of nearly 30 other cases the lord advocate had updated governments about over the last three decades. It emerged that on 20 March last year, Bain told John Swinney that Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP, had appeared in court charged with embezzling more than £460,000 from the party. That detail did not emerge publicly until earlier this month.
Opposition parties described the revelation as a “bombshell”. Scottish Labour’s deputy leader, Jackie Baillie, said the public “need to know that all criminal cases are handled impartially and without political interference”. Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay said the row “surely sounds the death knell for the lord advocate’s dual role”.
Senior legal figures have expressed surprise that the Scottish government has not yet published an expert report on splitting the lord advocate’s dual roles, which it received more than a year ago. The report by Malcolm McMillan, a former chief executive of the Scottish Law Commission, was to inform a promised consultation. Concerns about the dual role have swirled since the SNP won power in 2007, and the prominent KC and former SNP MP Joanna Cherry proposed a private member’s bill in 2024 to separate the roles, citing a perception of conflict of interest highlighted by the investigation into Alex Salmond.
The delay in publishing the McMillan review has raised suspicions that it may have been blocked or resisted within the government. Angela Constance, the justice secretary, has been asked repeatedly by Scottish Conservative MSP Liam Kerr about when the report and the government’s response will be published. She said in April last year that the report was being peer reviewed, but there is no sign of a consultation before the Scottish elections in May. A Scottish government spokesperson said that while it was considering whether change might be desirable, it considered the current position appropriate.
Brian McConnachie, one of Scotland’s leading KCs, called the situation “ludicrous”, questioning why the lord advocate was involved in telling the government about the case if she had recused herself. However, Roddy Dunlop KC, dean of the faculty of advocates, defended Bain, saying she had “always evinced the highest level of ethical conduct”, and described suggestions of corruption as “entirely baseless”.
