ONE of the country's most celebrated criminal lawyers has spoken out against those who are "hell-bent on dismantling" the Scottish legal system as a key facet of law faces removal from the statute books.
Joseph Beltrami ,79, an honorary life member of the Law Society of Scotland, said a recommendation to abolish the ancient rule of corroboration, which demands two sources of incriminating evidence, could lead to miscarriages of justice.
In a letter to The Herald, Mr Beltrami, who defended more than 500 people during his 50-year career, said: "For years I have asked juries to bear in mind that there must be two fingers pointing at the accused. One will not do.
"Many years ago, Lord Blackstone, a well respected jurist and judge, said succinctly, 'Better that 10 guilty persons walk free than one innocent suffer.'
"There is a need for corroboration as a way of testing the Crown case to the limit."
Mr Beltrami added that he told a jury "many times" that "one witness is no witness".
The lawyer successfully secured the only two royal pardons granted in Scotland in the 20th century, with Paddy Meehan, falsely accused of the murder of a pensioner during a break-in at a house in Ayr, and Maurice Swanson, wrongly convicted for a bank robbery, both seeing their punishments cancelled following Mr Bel-trami's intervention.
He also secured a number of acquittals for Glasgow gangster Arthur Thompson in the 1980s.
Mr Beltrami's comments come as the Scottish Government considers the findings of the Carloway Review, which recommends the "archaic" rule of corroboration is ended.
Lord Carloway found that juries should assess the quality and relevancy of evidence "free of the current restrictive rules and principles, such as the general requirement for corroboration, that belong to an earlier age and, as research has indicated, may now operate as an impediment to justice".
Some hope that abolishing the need for corroboration will increase the number of successful prosecutions, particularly in rape and other sexual offences which had long suffered low conviction rates due to the need for more than one witness.
The Faculty of Advocates has called for a full Royal Commission to consider Lord Carloway's proposals and said that corroboration was essential to safeguard miscarriages of justice.
In his letter, Mr Beltrami also criticises the advent of new double jeopardy laws in Scotland which will allow an accused to be re-tried after an earlier acquittal where compelling new evidence exists.
Mr Beltrami said: "I am very much against this and how many times can one be forced to stand trial? Crown-wise not a bad idea, perhaps, if earlier errors were made and can be so rectified.
"Now the Crown can have two [or more] bites at the fast diminishing cherry."
He added: "At the year of 1950, when I entered the esteemed Faculty of Law at Glasgow, our criminal justice system was second to none in the world. Indeed, we Scots boasted about it. In particular, England was behind us in many important aspects.
"Now, and after all these years, it does seem that many are hell-bent on dismantling it."
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