THE Scottish legal establishment was split down the middle last night after the country’s most senior law officer backed the creation of a UK Supreme Court.

Colin Boyd, QC, the Lord Advocate, also dismissed the opinion of senior Scottish judges that such a court would be incompatible with the 1707 Act of Union.

His remarks in a lecture to the Law Society of Scotland contradict those of Lord Cullen and Lord Hope, who have described the Government’s plan as unconstitutional.

Lord Cullen of Whitekirk, the Lord Justice General of Scotland, claimed that a Supreme Court would be a retrograde step that would threaten the separate identity of Scottish law.

Lord Hope of Craighead, a former Lord President, Scotland’s most senior judge, said that if the new body was seen as a predominantly English court, it could be challenged under the Act of Union because it would suggest there was a body of UK law.

The Scottish National Party last night called on Mr Boyd to withdraw his remarks. Nicola Sturgeon, Shadow Justice Minister, said that the Lord Advocate, a member of the Scottish Executive, was guilty of “a politically motivated attack on top judges”.

Mr Boyd described the Supreme Court as a modern solution for a modern government and called on everyone in the Scottish legal system to be “forward thinking” on the issue. “There is no future for this country, and this legal system, in looking to the past,” he said.

Our legal ancestors had done what they had thought was right for them but times had changed, he said. Scottish lawyers and legislators had now to look to what would best reflect “the interests and the genius and the spirit of Scots law in the United Kingdom in the 21st century.”

The claims of Lord Hope and Lord Cullen that the proposals were not compatible with the Treaty of Union were “unsound in law and judgment”, he said.

“I believe that we in Scotland should welcome and embrace these developments. From a Scottish perspective it gives us the opportunity to rationalise the present byzantine and archaic procedures which take devolution issues to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council and other appeals to the House of Lords.”

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