Legal expenses and cost for tribunal: FOI Release

Information requested

In December Angela Constance said: 'Sheriff Jack Brown is subject to ongoing Fitness for Judicial Office Tribunal proceedings. Under the Court Reform (Scotland) Act 2014, Scottish ministers are obliged to pay such expenses as they consider are reasonably required to be incurred to enable a tribunal to carry out its functions. The Scottish Government will publish costs of the tribunal at the conclusion of the proceedings.'

Can you now give us the costs?

Response

The answer to your question is:

The total costs of both tribunals in relation to Sheriff Jack Brown is £436,329.95. The breakdown is shown in the below table:

 

Fiscal year	2018-19	2019-20	2021-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25
Fees paid to Legal Counsel or Solicitors	£0	£0	£0	£0	£43,483.79	£258,334.98	£8,920.20
Expert witnesses or consultants	£0	£0	£0	£0	£0	£0	£0
Administrative/ misc expenses of tribunal	£0	£0	£7,254.00	£0	£0	£1,217.11	£0
Other relevant tribunal expenses *	£0	£10,704.35	£58,029.52	£0	£0	£43,640.00	£4,746.00

* Other relevant tribunal expenses include members of the tribunal, Investigating Officer and Presenting Officer.

The total cost of the first tribunal was £75,987.87.

The total cost of the second tribunal was £360,342.08.

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