History in the making

Many of the problems at Shetland Charitable Trust (SCT) stem from the bitter controversy over the trust’s involvement in the Viking Energy wind farm project, which is due to come to a head at the UK Supreme Court hearing on Sustainable Shetland’s challenge to the legitimacy of the Scottish government’s award of planning consent for the project on Thursday 18 December.

However, it seems the redoubtable Stuart Hill has challenged the court’s jurisdiction over Orkney and Shetland matters, something I have, inexplicably, not seen reported in Shetland media.

Here’s an excerpt from the Forvik newsletter, which beeped its way into my Inbox, earlier on Monday:

“On Thursday there is an appeal hearing at the Supreme Court in London to decide the legality of the Scottish Government’s permission to erect a giant wind farm in Shetland…….(which)……..gives us the chance to challenge the UK government in the highest court in the land.

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“When I enquired from the court how I should make such a challenge, I was told I had to get the permission of the parties, fill in Form 2, and then ask the permission of the court itself. I could see this getting bogged down in red tape in the short time available, so decided to take the risk of ignoring their procedures and simply sending them a notice. After a protracted email correspondence with the clerk of the court, during which he did his best to steer me down the official route and avoid my direct questions, today I finally got the news that my papers are on the file. This means they can’t be ignored by the judges (4 law lords) and, if they follow the proper procedures, they must have a hearing on jurisdiction before hearing the main case. The onus is on the party bringing the appeal to show the court that it has jurisdiction – this means that somebody has to prove that Shetland is part of Scotland.”

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A copy of Stuart’s notice to the UK Supreme Court can be seen at: http://www.sovereignshetland.com/Documents/VikingEnergy/notice.htm

If nothing more is achieved, this is history in the making and if Hill’s challenge is upheld, it could be “Hasta la vista” to, among other things, Viking Energy and Scottish nationalism (no oil, no independence), yet we know nothing about it.

Why?

John Tulloch
Lyndon
Arrochar

Note from the editors: Stuart Hill’s latest attempt for a UK court to prove that it has jurisdiction over Shetland was included in our In Brief section on 11 December 2014: www.shetnews.co.uk/inbrief/