Alex Salmond launches legal action against Scottish government

Former First Minister Alex Salmond has launched a fresh legal case against the Scottish government.

Mr Salmond took the government to court in 2019 over its mishandling of harassment complaints against him.

He has already been awarded over half a million pounds in costs for the case but is now seeking significant damages and loss of earnings.

The former SNP leader was cleared of sexual assault charges in a separate criminal trial in 2020.

Mr Salmond, who is now leader of the Alba party, has lodged a Court of Session petition alleging misfeasance - the wrongful exercise of lawful authority - by civil servants.

He said that "not one single person has been held accountable" for the botched handling of the harassment inquiry, which he said a Court of Session judge described as unlawful, unfair and tainted by apparent bias."

"With this court action, that evasion of responsibility ends," Mr Salmond added.

He added: "The calling of the action signals that the day of reckoning for the Scottish government's record of misfeasance on this grand scale will inevitably come."

First Minister Humza Yousaf said, given that the case was now live, he could not comment other than to say the Scottish government would "defend its position robustly".

The case has been put on hold while investigations continue into other complaints Mr Salmond has made - including about perjury during the previous case.

The Crown Office has been looking at that, with a spokesman saying: "Correspondence from Mr Salmond's solicitor will be responded to in due course.

"As is standard practice in any matter regarding politicians, this is being dealt with by independent prosecutors without the involvement of the Law Officers."

The public officials and ministers named in Mr Salmond's action include his successor as first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, as well as the Scottish government's former permanent secretary Leslie Evans and ex-chief of staff Liz Lloyd.

A spokeswoman for Ms Sturgeon said: "Nicola utterly refutes Salmond's claims, as she has always done.

"She answered questions before a parliamentary committee for eight hours in 2021, and was also investigated and cleared by the independent adviser on the ministerial code.

"Salmond's actions are a matter for him, and the conduct of the case is a matter for the Scottish government."

The legal move comes after a special Holyrood committee was set up to investigate the government's handling of misconduct claims made against him by two civil servants.

The Scottish government had been forced to admit it had acted unlawfully and paid the former first minister's legal fees of £512,000 after he launched a judicial review case.

A committee of nine MSPs - four from the SNP, two Tories and one from each of Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems - was chosen, headed by deputy presiding officer Linda Fabiani.

Mr Salmond told them that a group of people close to his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, had plotted against him.

He claimed Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code by misleading parliament during the investigation.

Ms Sturgeon had already been cleared of breaching the ministerial code by a separate independent inquiry.

The panel concluded that the Scottish government's handling of harassment complaints against Mr Salmond was "seriously flawed".

It also said women had been badly let down by the government.

In January last year, the Scottish government published a new procedure for dealing with harassment and bullying complaints against ministers.

External investigators will now look into formal complaints against ministers, with the government responsible for acting on findings.

Alex Salmond was cleared by a jury of 14 counts of sexual assault after a two week trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2020.

After the bombshell of the original court case and the drama of the Holyrood inquiry, it may have seemed like Scottish politics had moved on from this row.

But for Alex Salmond there was always unfinished business.

The former first minister accepted the outcome of the inquiry and recovered half a million pounds in costs for his successful judicial review.

But he had long threatened to sue for compensation, and to try to force someone in government - specifically the former permanent secretary Leslie Evans - to take responsibility for the flawed investigation.

He was also frustrated by the legal barriers to putting certain points on the record, which he believed backed his claims against figures in the SNP and the government.

Those barriers have not gone away. But Mr Salmond looks set to bring the row back to the fore again.

This case will be contested entirely in the courts, and it will be for judges to decide on its merits. But these are politicians we are talking about, so there is some politics to this too.

Mr Salmond's previous legal action and the inquiry that followed was damaging for the government, and threatened Nicola Sturgeon's position as first minister.

Humza Yousaf can at least say that was all before his time, but a fresh legal wrangle is still the last thing the first minister needs.

It is also interesting for Mr Salmond, whose new-ish Alba Party has been pushing for a "Scotland United" deal with the SNP.

If he is to resume his criticism of senior figures in the party and government, any hopes of a political rapprochement seem remote.