Gerry Moynihan

Last updated

Gerry Moynihan QC is a Scottish advocate who was Standing Junior Counsel for the Scottish Office in relation to planning matters from 1990 to 1995. Moynihan was appointed QC in 1997 and was an Advocate Depute from 1995 to 1998. [1]

Queens Counsel jurist appointed by letters patent

A Queen's Counsel, or King's Counsel during the reign of a king, is an eminent lawyer who is appointed by the monarch to be one of "Her Majesty's Counsel learned in the law." The term is recognised as an honorific. The position exists in some Commonwealth jurisdictions around the world, but other Commonwealth countries have either abolished the position, or re-named it to eliminate monarchical connotations, such as "Senior Counsel" or "Senior Advocate". Queen's Counsel is an office, conferred by the Crown, that is recognised by courts. Members have the privilege of sitting within the bar of court.

Scottish Office UK government department, 1885-1999

The Scottish Office was a department of the United Kingdom Government from 1885 until 1999, exercising a wide range of government functions in relation to Scotland under the control of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Following the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, most of its work was transferred to the newly established Scottish Executive, with a small residue of functions retained by the Scotland Office.

Contents

Wide range of litigation

Gerry Moynihan undertakes a wide range of civil litigation from commercial disputes to professional negligence. Moynihan has an extensive practice in Human Rights and Administrative Law, and is instructed on behalf of public bodies including the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, for whom he acted in recovering records from the Lord Advocate. He obtained compensation for a number of litigants in a class action in 2005. [2] He is currently Counsel to the Fingerprint Inquiry, an inquiry set by the Scottish Government under the Inquiries Act 2005.

Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government, established by the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

Lord Advocate chief legal officer of the Scottish Government

Her Majesty's Advocate, known as the Lord Advocate, is the chief legal officer of the Scottish Government and the Crown in Scotland for both civil and criminal matters that fall within the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament. He or she is the chief public prosecutor for Scotland and all prosecutions on indictment are conducted by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, nominally in the Lord Advocate's name.

A class action, class suit, or representative action is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member of that group. The class action originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, but Canada, as well as several European countries with civil law have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers.

Previous cases

Conflict of interest?

The Fingerprint Inquiry was embroiled in controversy on its opening day in June 2009 when it was reported that Gerry Moynihan QC, senior counsel to the inquiry, has a potential conflict of interest relating to the Shirley McKie case. [3]

A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations in which the personal interest of an individual or organization might adversely affect a duty owed to make decisions for the benefit of a third party.

Related Research Articles

Tom Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill British judge

Thomas Henry Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, was an eminent British judge and jurist who served as Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice and Senior Law Lord. He was widely recognized as the greatest judge and lawyer of his generation. Baroness Hale of Richmond observed that his pioneering role in the formation of the United Kingdom Supreme Court may be his most important and long-lasting legacy. Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers regarded Bingham as 'one of the two great legal figures of my lifetime in the law'.

MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396, 1953 SLT 255 was a UK administrative law and Scottish legal action on whether Queen Elizabeth II was entitled to use the numeral "II" in her title in use in Scotland, there having never been an earlier Elizabeth reigning in Scotland.

Colin Boyd, Baron Boyd of Duncansby Scottish judge

Colin Boyd, Baron Boyd of Duncansby, PC QC, is a Scottish judge who has been a Senator of the College of Justice since June 2012. He was Lord Advocate for Scotland from 24 February 2000 until his resignation on 4 October 2006. On 11 April 2006, Downing Street announced that Colin Boyd would take a seat as a crossbench life peer; however, he took the Labour whip after resigning as Lord Advocate. He was formally introduced in the House of Lords on 3 July 2006. On the day SNP leader Alex Salmond was elected First Minister of Scotland, it was reported that Boyd was quitting the Scottish Bar to become a part-time consultant with public law solicitors, Dundas & Wilson. He told the Glasgow Herald, "This is a first. I don't think a Lord Advocate has ever done this—left the Bar and become a solicitor."

David Hope, Baron Hope of Craighead British judge

James Arthur David Hope, Baron Hope of Craighead, is a retired Scottish judge who served as the first Deputy President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom from 2009 until his retirement in 2013, having previously been the Second Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. In 2015, he became the Convenor of the Crossbench peers in the House of Lords.

Nick Phillips, Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers British judge

Nicholas Addison Phillips, Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers is a British lawyer and former senior English judge.

Jonathan Sumption, Lord Sumption judge

Jonathan Philip Chadwick Sumption, Lord Sumption,, is a British judge, author and medieval historian. He was sworn in as a Justice of the Supreme Court on 11 January 2012, succeeding The Lord Collins of Mapesbury. Exceptionally, he was raised to the Supreme Court bench directly from the practising bar, rather than from prior service as a full-time judge. He retired from the Supreme Court on 9 December 2018 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Shirley McKie is a former Scottish police detective who was accused by fingerprint analysis staff of the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) of leaving her thumb print on the bathroom door frame of a murder crime-scene in Kilmarnock on 14 January 1997. She denied she had ever been in the house of murder victim Marion Ross, but Detective Constable McKie was initially suspended, then sacked, then arrested by Strathclyde Police in 1998, and tried and acquitted in 1999. A scandal subsequently developed because of allegations of misconduct on the part of the SCRO and the police.

Solicitor advocate type of solicitor in England and Wales or in Scotland or Northern Ireland

Solicitor advocate is the title used by a solicitor who is qualified to represent clients as an advocate in the higher courts in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Frank Mulholland, Lord Mulholland Scottish lawyer, Lord Advocate

Francis Mulholland, Lord Mulholland, is a Scottish judge who has been a Senator of the College of Justice since 2016. He previously served from 2011 to 2016 as Lord Advocate, one of the Great Officers of State of Scotland and the country's chief Law Officer, and as Solicitor General, the junior Law Officer.

Sir William Anthony Campbell PC was a Lord Justice of Appeal in Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2008.

Paul Cullen, Lord Pentland British judge

Paul Benedict Cullen, Lord Pentland is a former Solicitor General for Scotland, a Senator of the College of Justice and former Chairman of the Scottish Law Commission.

The Fingerprint Inquiry was a public inquiry set up by Scottish Government ministers under the Inquiries Act 2005 to look at the steps which were taken to identify and verify the fingerprints associated with the case of HM Advocate v McKie in 1999. The Inquiry was to determine the consequences of steps taken, report on findings of fact and make recommendations.

Theodore Huckle British lawyer

Theodore Huckle is a Welsh barrister and was the Counsel General for Wales, the Welsh Government's Law Officer, between 2011 and 2016.

Ailsa Carmichael, Lady Carmichael

Ailsa Jane Carmichael, Lady Carmichael is a Scottish judge. She was appointed in June 2016 as a Senator of the College of Justice, a judge of the Court of Session.

Sheriff Personal Injury Court

The Sheriff Personal Injury Court is a Scottish court with exclusive competence over claims relating to personal injury where the case is for a work-related accident claim in excess of £1,000, where the total amount claimed is in excess of £5,000, or where a sheriff in a local sheriff court remits proceedings to the Personal Injury Court. It has concurrent jurisdiction with the Court of Session for all claims in excess of £100,000, and concurrent jurisdiction with the local sheriff courts for personal injury claims within its competence.

The Sheriff Principal of Glasgow and Strathkelvin is the head of the judicial system of the sheriffdom of Glasgow and Strathkelvin, one of the six sheriffdoms covering the whole of Scotland. The current sheriffdoms were created in 1975 to replace the previous arrangement of 12 sheriffdoms. The sheriffdom of Glasgow and Strathkelvin maintains a single Sheriff Court based in Glasgow.

The Sheriff Principal of South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway is the head of the judicial system of the sheriffdom of South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway, one of the six sheriffdoms covering the whole of Scotland. The sheriffdom employs a number of legally qualified sheriffs who are responsible for the hearing of cases in five Sheriffs Court based in Airdrie, Dumfries, Hamilton, Lanark and Stranraer. The current sheriffdoms were created in 1975 when the previous arrangement of 12 sheriffdoms was discontinued.

The Sheriff Principal of Lothian and Borders is the head of the judicial system of the sheriffdom of Lothian and Borders, one of the six sheriffdoms covering the whole of Scotland. The sheriffdom employs a number of legally qualified sheriffs who are responsible for the hearing of cases in four Sheriffs Courts based in Edinburgh, Jedburgh, Livingston and Selkirk. The current Scottish sheriffdoms were created in 1975 when the previous arrangement of 12 sheriffdoms was discontinued.

References

  1. ↑ "Axiom Advocates Members". Archived from the original on 2009-01-20. Retrieved 2009-06-02.
  2. ↑ "Slopping out payments for inmates". BBC News. 2005-03-09.
  3. ↑ Tom Gordon (2009-06-02). "McKie fingerprint inquiry hit by QC's conflict of interest". Sunday Herald.[ permanent dead link ]


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.