How might our future Justice Minister cope?
I'm back from leave. Many thanks to Martina for her expert and entertaining blog sitting. For some strange reason, the eyes of the world weren't on Belfast today where the but rather on the Scottish parliament at Holyrood, where the Justice Secretary Kenneth MacAskill has been defending his decision to release the Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds.
A few thoughts. The performance of the MSPs seemed generally of a higher calibre than that of our MLAs (I didn't notice anyone reading hesitantly from a piece of paper).
Although it's hard to think of any direct comparison, given that the Scottish justice Secretary is in the eye of an international storm, the session gave a sense of just how impassioned and difficult matters can get when crime and punishment issues are involved. Could a future Stormont Justice Minister find themselves lambasted over a controversial prisoner release? Or have the early releases sanctioned by the Good Friday Agreement drawn the political sting from such decisions?
When those early releases were being negotiated, Bill Clinton picked up the phone to urge David Trimble et al to do the deal in the wider interests of the peace. Eleven years on the FBI Director Robert Mueller resorted to an open letter to express his view that the Lockerbie release was By the time Mr Mueller's letter became public the release was a done deal.
That brings me to something today's Edinburgh session had in common with many of our Stormont sittings. We are well used to debates which concentrate on the past and change nothing so far as future policy is concerned. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is now in Libya for the next three months, or however long he has left to live, and no matter what the continuing political fall out is in Holyrood, London and Washington nothing is going to change that reality.
I'm 
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