The Scottish Justices Association has been accused of “borderline hysteria” after proposing a mass cull of potential whistleblowers after being repeatedly criticised for overseas junkets.

The taxpayer-funded justice quango which represents the country’s 400 justices of the peace, is considering axing its entire board as part of an extreme mole-hunt.

The idea was proposed after the Sunday Herald revealed SJA chair John Lawless was going on a five-day, £3500 conference trip to New Zealand in September.

The Glasgow and Strathkelvin JP had previously been to conferences in Malaysia and Uganda in 2011 and 2012 at a total cost of £3800.

When the Sunday Herald enquired about his latest jaunt, outgoing SJA Secretary Keith Parkes sent a furious email to the organisation’s Executive Committee.

“The leak to the press should be considered a very serious breach of Judicial Ethics,” he said, recommending an immediate report to a senior judge.

“It would appear (but not yet proved) that once again a member of the Executive Committee is so lacking in integrity, that the press has been informed, either directly or indirectly.”

Parkes, who sits as a JP in Perth, suggested a complete clear-out of the SJA hierarchy.

“I consider that… the whole of the SJA Executive Committee should resign with immediate effect with new elections… where no current members would be allowed to stand.”

He signed off the email “with regrets”.

Parkes is expected to raise the matter at the SJA’s annual general meeting later this month.

“Maybe he wants to hold a Watergate-style hearing,” scoffed one legal source.

Last year the Sunday Herald revealed how Parkes, a former RAF pilot, sparked a row inside the SJA by going on a £3000, five-day justice conference to Zambia.

Even some of his fellow SJA board members denounced the Commonwealth Magistrates' and Judges' Association (CMJA) event as a “junket” and a “gross misuse of public funds”.

Held at the opulent Zambezi Sun Hotel next to Victoria Falls, the conference’s entire last day was set aside for sightseeing, including a "sunset cruise on the Zambezi River".

This year’s CMJA conference in the New Zealand capital Wellington, which Lawless attended, included two evening receptions, a “gala dinner”, and another full day’s sightseeing.

Although SJA bosses attending conferences are expected to write reports to enlighten their fellow JPs about the discussions, these have often been minimal in the past.

One JP who went to a CMJA conference in Bermuda in 2007 wrote just 650 words.

In 2008 two JPs at a CMJA conference in South Africa costing £4227 produced "rather short reports that concentrated on their personal impressions of Nelson Mandela rather than what had been said at the conference", according to a leak - one report was just 250 words long.

Lawless’s reports on his Malaysia and Uganda trips ran to 700 and 600 words respectively.

The SJA, which has a budget of around £18,000 a year, is entirely funded by the public purse.

Independent MSP John Wilson, who has previously queried the SJA’s spending priorities, said the idea of replacing the entire executive was “borderline hysteria”.

He said: “This is a complete over-reaction. It’s just because they’ve been named and shamed. The issue is not moles. It’s junkets when the court service is underfunded and overworked.”

Lawless declined to comment.