Leeona Dorrian

Lady Dorrian   (Advocate, Judge)
Born	16 June 1957
Alma mater	University of Aberdeen

Lady Leeona Dorrian (born 16 June 1957) is the Lord Justice Clerk, the second most senior judicial post in Scotland, having previously been a Senator of the College of Justice (from 2005 to 2016). She called at the Faculty of Advocates in 1981, where she served as Standing Junior Counsel to the Health and Safety Executive and Commission between 1987 and 1994, as an Advocate Depute between 1988 and 1991, and Standing Junior to the Department of Energy between 1991 and 1994.

Lady Dorrian was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1994.

She has been a Judge since 2002. After three years as a temporary Judge, she became a Judge of the Scottish Supreme Courts in 2005. On her appointment as Lord Justice Clerk in April 2016, Lady Dorrian became the most senior woman in Scottish legal history.

Dispensing with juries

On 11 May 2021, Lady Dorrian sentenced Craig Murray to 8 months imprisonment for his reporting on the Alex Salmond trial over alleged sexual misconduct. Hamish McGlumpha posted this comment on Craig Murray's blog:

Dorrian presents herself as an impartial judge – but she is far from that. She is a political activist and according to Hugh Kerr, former leader of the National Union of Journalists, “has led the campaign to get rid of juries in the cases of sex offences in Scotland.”

Cases such as the one she presided over – where a jury acquitted Alex Salmond – and hence this case, where she and her fellow judges took exception to Mr Murray’s observation that the Salmond case was a “stitch-up” – something so bleeding obvious that it hardly merits contradiction.

The Crown Office, which brought both the Salmond case, and has in a leading role an identified MI5 agent, is according to journalist Mark Hirst “an institutionally corrupt prosecuting authority” which is “abusing their power and acting in an evidently biased and political manner.”

We are in serious trouble here in Scotland with a corrupt government, prosecution authorities and judiciary, who act with impunity, in concert and without effective accountability, to silence dissent and imprison – or attempt to imprison, political opponents.

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Craig Murray’s jailing is the latest move in a battle to snuff out independent journalism	blog post	30 July 2021	Jonathan Cook	Assange and Murray are not only telling us troubling truths we are not supposed to hear. The fact that they are being denied solidarity by those who are their colleagues, those who may be next in the firing line, tells us everything we need to know about the so-called mainstream media: that the role of corporate journalists is to serve establishment interests, not challenge them.
Document:Defend Freedom of Expression – Support Mark Hirst	Article	15 May 2020	Tommy Sheridan	If we don’t speak up now in defence of those guilty of no crime other than expressing their opinions and speaking truth to power then we will all one day be caught in the tangled web of thought control and authoritarian rule which will render us powerless to oppose injustice and resist draconian restrictions on our freedoms.
Document:Dissident British ex-diplomat Craig Murray indicted for blog posts in Kafkaesque case	Article	27 April 2020	Ben Norton	“The state believes it has finally discovered a way to put me in prison without the inconvenient hurdle of a jury of my peers. This really is the epitome of bad law. To use it against freedom of speech is disgusting.”
Document:Kenny MacAskill: Scotland, but not as I know it	blog post	15 September 2021	Kenny MacAskill	Craig Murray’s imprisonment is wrong and his prosecution undermines the liberties we claim to cherish. It’s Scotland but not as I know it or as it should be. As a former Justice Secretary, I find this shameful, and that it should happen under the watch of those who claim to cherish our Nations’ liberty is disgraceful.
Document:Lady Dorrian's Law	blog post	30 July 2021	Stuart Campbell	The ruinous determination of the Scottish Government and the Scottish judicial system to put someone, anyone connected to Alex Salmond in jail out of the First Minister’s demented paranoia and sheer malice has had many disastrous outcomes, for individuals, taxpayers and the country as a whole.
Document:Murray Scottish Appeal Denied; Allowed to Try UK Court	Article	8 June 2021	Joe Lauria	Craig Murray may have been a Crown target for the contempt conviction because he was among few writers defending Alex Salmond and was vindicated by Salmond’s acquittal. Murray has been a fierce advocate for his friend Julian Assange, the imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher, whom the United States is trying to extradite from Britain.
Document:Scottish High Court Denies Whistleblower Craig Murray's Request To Appeal Conviction Over Blog Posts	Article	9 June 2021	Mohamed Elmaazi	Craig Murray's fate turns on whether the judges in London, where the Supreme Court is based, consider the application on an expedited basis.
Document:The Crown came for Craig Murray	blog post	29 July 2021	Gordon Dangerfield	“I go to jail with a clean conscience after a Kafkaesque trial. I believe this is actually the state’s long sought revenge for my whistleblowing on security service collusion with torture and my long term collaboration with Wikileaks and other whistleblowers."

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 12 May 2021.
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