Carmichael opposes election petition

ALISTAIR Carmichael is opposing the petition lodged at the Court of Session and has no intention to step down as the MP for the northern isles.

The MP has come under legal and political pressure after admitting that he had lied on TV about leaking a private government memo, which indicated that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had told the French ambassador that she would prefer David Cameron to win the election.

Both Sturgeon and the ambassador categorically denied that she had made such comments.

Last week a group of campaigners from Orkney lodged a petition under The Representation of People Act 1983 in a bid to overturn the 7 May election.

They said they had been kept in the dark about the MP’s involvement when they went to the polls.

On Tuesday, Carmichael opposed the petition – saying that he made an error of judgement on a political matter, but denied that it amounted to a “false statement of fact in relation to the personal character or conduct” of either himself or any other candidate in the election.

His legal team insists that there was no breach of section 106 of the act and call on the Court of Session to refuse the petition.

A statement from the Scottish Liberal Democrats said: “Alistair Carmichael did not make a false statement of fact in relation to the personal character or conduct of a candidate, before or during an election, for the purpose of affecting the return of any candidate at the election.

The full submission can be read here, but key sections are as follows:

• “The First Respondent (Carmichael) had at the material time no reason to doubt the accuracy of the content of the memorandum. The First respondent could have stopped the sharing of the memo.
  “He however took the view, given the significance of what was reported and the apparent credibility of the source, that it was in the public interest for it to be released. The First Respondent accepts responsibility for what occurred.”
• “The First respondent accepts (and has prior to the inceptions of these proceedings publicly accepted) that in a statement he misstated his awareness of the leaked memorandum. This was an error of judgement on a political matter.
  “It did not amount to a “false statement of fact in relation to the personal character or conduct” of the First Respondent himself, nor of any other candidate in the election.
  “The statements made during the Channel4 interview do not infringe section 106 of the representation of people act 1983.”

 Meanwhile the Crowdfunder set up by the ‘People versus Carmichael’ camapign to finance the court action has reached its target of raising £60,000.