New Petitions

I concur with Bill Butler, but we must be clear that there are two issues. On the face of it, the issue is whether a solicitor who does something wrong can be brought to law. We must accept that for a solicitor who is acting as an officer of the court, the answer will be no, for some very good reasons. However, the issue behind that is about ensuring that solicitors who are appointed as reporters to the court, or in any other capacity to do with children, are trained to understand and work with children. As a society, we have an increasing understanding of those issues, but I am not sure that most solicitors do. The classic example that was quoted to me by a solicitor who works in the field is that, when a young child is asked why they do something, they think that they are being told off, because that is what parents tend to do. One has to understand that a child's logic and language are different from an adult's. Lawyers who are appointed by the court and who do not understand that could—in the best faith, never mind anything else—come up with wrong answers.The first issue is the one that is on the face of the petition, which is about working out whether such people can be dealt with through the legal system. The other issue, which is probably more important, lies behind that first one and is about whether the Government is taking steps to ensure that solicitors who are appointed by the courts are trained in what they are doing and not just in the law.

When we write to the Scottish Government, we should ask how many complaints of such a nature have been made against solicitors who have acted as court reporters. If the petition arises from an isolated incident, we could deal with it as that, but it would be interesting to find out whether the Government has pulled together information on the issue or whether it regularly monitors the number of complaints that are made about the court process. I understand Nigel Don's comments about officers acting on behalf of the court system not being approached in relation to the advice that they give and not having legal action taken against them. However, if we discover that such situations arise frequently, a re-examination of the system must be done to ensure that court reporters or other court officials do not mislead the court in the evidence or reports that they provide for the court's consideration.

The Scottish Child Law Centre and another organisation, whose name eludes me, deal specifically with children and legal matters. We should ask the experts for their views on the petition.