Sir, – I read with interest the article by Alex Salmond (June 8) and he rightly identifies the misuse of the justice system by those having power and money to pursue their own agenda.
However, he wrongly maintains everyone is entitled to their day in court.
My recent experience of observing justice in the local criminal courts left me very concerned.
A young woman had consulted a solicitor regarding a minor traffic accident.
He had estimated the cost of representing her at £1750.
Though working, she did not qualify for legal aid and could not meet these costs.
She represented herself and was advised by the justice to seek the services of a solicitor, so as not to be disadvantaged.
I heard him give the same advice to other defendants. The consideration of these individuals was probably to balance the cost of representation against pleading guilty at the first opportunity.
This is unfair to those in work but who have insufficient free funds to mount legal challenge.
This application of the justice system undermines the belief we all have in fairness before the courts.
The courts take the view if you plead not guilty, the penalty, if found guilty, is in excess of that paid for failing to enter a guilty plea at the first opportunity.
Is justice that weak it requires this double-barrelled whammy of not only disadvantaging the impecunious defendant by putting representation out of reach but adds to the wrong by racking up the penalty for having the temerity to raise challenge as a litigant in person?
Oscar Wilde is reputed to have said anyone representing themselves has a fool for a client, but there may be no other viable option.
To hark back to Alex Salmond’s view of the vexatious litigant pursuing a personal agenda, I offer the opinion that the conveyor belt of judicial abuse in the lower courts is far worse and more common.
If we continue with the status quo it may be as one well-heeled individual defendant once said: “Justice is what you can afford to pay.”
Mr A G Walker. Puddledub Cottage, Pitmuies, Guthrie, Forfar.
Do not fund discrimination
Sir, -The breathtaking irony and audacity of his claim that the Orange Order were victims of discrimination due to Perth and Kinross Council’s perfectly legitimate and sensible attempt to ensure that theorganisation covered the costs of their own march in Perth was clearly lost on Mr Robert McLean (June 6).
After all, the Orange Order has practised discrimination for every single day of its existence.
Among others things, the Orange Order celebrates annually a now centuries-old foreign battle; sustains, fuels and incubates an archaic,sectarian view of the modern world; only admits Protestant men as members and even bans those who dare to marry Catholics.
The Orange Order, given its sectarian past and present, not to mention the social and economic disruption which inevitably seems to accompany these marches, should not be allowed to march in Perth.
Imagine the entirely justifiable uproar if Perth and Kinross Council were forced to pay for the activities of an organisation which banned members from marrying Muslims or Jews.
However, as an outright ban appears unlikely, the Orange Order should, at the very least, be made to pay its own way.
Taxpayer-fundedsectarianism is not acceptable in 21st century Scotland.
David Kelly. 17 Highfields, Dunblane.
Pope would take relaxed view
Sir, – I hope that neither you, nor your columnist Mike Donachie, will pay any significant attention to Philip Kearns’ misleading and preachy letter (June 6) about names of heads of state having to be written correctly and respectfully.
Firstly, Mr Donachie writes as Mike Donachie so Mr Kearns has no business changing his first name to Michael.
Secondly, Nicola Sturgeon is not a head of state and thirdly, Mr Donachie’s article was an opinion piece, not a news report.
Fourthly, American presidents are often referred to in print in a friendly way by their initials, FDR, JFK, LBJ.
While I think that Mr Donachie did not enhance his piece by calling the pope, Frank, I would suggest that Francis himself would find Mr Kearns’ letter’s pompous stuffiness much more uncongenial than Mr Donachie’s familiarity.
Gordon Dilworth. 20 Baledmund Road, Pitlochry.
Trees sacrificed for pavements
Sir, – I understand Dundee City Council is embarked on a rolling programme of taking over and resurfacing unadopted pavements.
This is good news for residents whose pavements are presently unadopted and somewhat rough and ready.
What I cannot understand is why the east side of Old Craigie Road has achieved a high or any priority for this work.
There are 10 dwellings on that side of the road, all at the north end, all but two of which have had proper pavements for years.
The rest of the east side of the road is bounded by allotments, the football ground and the Eastern Cemetery.
Will someone please tell me why this pavement needed resurfacing?
If it was unsuitable to walk on, which actually it was not, there is a lovely wide, tarred pavement on the other side of the road.
The worst part of this whole exercise is that eight beautiful, mature trees were sacrificed in the process.
Apparently they were removed because the work to improve the pavement involved cutting through the roots, thus making the trees unstable and, of course, condemning them to a slow death, so down the trees came.
I was told they were to be replaced with new trees.
Great news, provided they survive the inevitable vandalism.
By the way, the improvements to the pavement seem to have stopped at Bingham Terrace, so is it possible that the row of trees south of there, which are much younger than the ones which have gone, are to be spared?
If so, why do this work at all, especially as the pathway south of Bingham Terrace is far more uneven and rough than was the part which has been resurfaced.
It all seems to me to be a colossal waste of money and totally unnecessary.
Sybil Berrecloth. 6 Duff Street, Dundee.
Tory onslaught to hit Scotland
Sir, – The £177 million budget cut imposed on Scotland by publicschool educatedmillionaire George Osborne is simply the opening salvo of a savage and brutal programme the Tories intend to inflict on the people of Scotland.
Already Scotland and the United Kingdom have been subjected to five years of heartless Tory austerity, allegedly to get the deficit down.
However, under George Osborne’sstewardship, the country’s deficit has risen from £811 billion to£1.2 trillion.
Tory cuts are, in fact, ideological.
Tories don’t believe in the public sector and want to sell everything off to corporations.
The consequences for working people of these policies has been horrific.
When David Cameron came to power, 300,000 people used foodbanks.
Today its 1,000,000 and by the end of this parliament it is predicted it will be 2,000,000.
George Osborne, however, did not see fit to impose austerity on his paymasters in the City. Already these greedy fatcats have seen their collective wealth double under Osborne’s stewardship.
The chancellor is already paying back the £40 million donated to the Tories by hedge funds. He is selling off the rest of Royal Mail for a fraction of its worth, all to Tory donors.
This will mean the end of the six-day universal service.
With £12 bn in cuts still to come, George Osborne has shown the Tories simply don’t care about working people, the sick or the disabled. This is a party of cold-hearted 19th century robber barons. They only care about their own Henley Regatta attending class.
Alan Hinnrichs. 2 Gillespie Terrace, Dundee.
Risky strategy on referendum
Sir, – Your correspondent, Mr John McNab (June 9) seems to have a problem with logic.
He thinks that if, or when, we have another independence referendum, then all four nations of the UK should take part.
He says this as a result of the SNP’s position in that the four nations should vote
independently of each other in the referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union, thereby giving a right of veto.
Mr McNab misses an important point in his letter.
A yes vote to Scottish independence creates a brand new state, whereas regardless of the result in an European Union referendum, there is no change of state.
By any international measure, statehood is decided only by those within the boundaries of the proposed new state.
The people who voted for independence clearly desire a brand new state, unshackled from a pernicious union.
The actual corollary of Mr McNab’s specious argument is that all 28 member states of the European Union should, therefore, have a say in whether the UK remains in, or leaves.
I rather doubt he would accept that.
Robert J S Christie. 4 Greenmount Road South, Burntisland.
Sparrow was even rarer treat
Sir, – In Saturday’s Courier in the Man with Two Dogs feature by Angus Whitson was an illustration of two sparrows.
Angus identified them as house sparrows which had hatched from his nest box and he photographed them.
They are not house sparrows at all, however, but the much rarer tree sparrows which are instantly recognisable from their white collars and black cheek spots.
As a former county bird recorder I am very familiar with these birds.
Norman Atkinson. Weaver’s Croft, Kingsmuir, Forfar.