[ad_1]
Nicola Sturgeon was acquitted of knowingly violating the Ministerial Code for her dealings with Alex Salmond after an independent investigation into allegations that she misled the Scottish Parliament.
James Hamilton QC, a former Irish prosecutor, had investigated the prime minister after she was accused of deliberately misleading Holyrood about when she learned of the sexual harassment allegations against Salmond.
Sturgeon called on opposition parties to respect Hamilton’s ruling and drop demands that he resign. Scottish Conservatives are going ahead with a vote of no confidence in the prime minister on Tuesday, but other opposition parties are not expected to back him.
“I welcome the findings of the independent investigation by James Hamilton, which are comprehensive, evidence-based and unequivocal,” he said.
“Mr. Hamilton has considered all the allegations against me, and I am pleased that the findings of his report release me from any breach of the ministerial code.
“I sought at every stage of this issue to act with integrity and in the public interest. As I have made clear above, I did not consider that I had broken the code, but these findings are an official, final and independent adjudication of that.
“Before its publication, opposition politicians emphasized the importance of respecting and accepting the result of the independent investigation of Mr. Hamilton, and I wholeheartedly committed to doing so. Now that they have reported, it is up to them to do the same. “
Sturgeon called Hamilton, an independent Scottish government adviser on the ministerial code and former director of public prosecution, to investigate his actions after Salmond won a legal challenge against his government’s investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against him in January. 2019.
It also investigated Sturgeon for failing to immediately alert senior public officials that he had met with Salmond to discuss a confidential Scottish government investigation into complaints of harassment by two public officials against him.
Sturgeon had met Salmond at his home on April 2, 2018 and had a subsequent phone call with him, but did not tell Lesley Evans, Scotland’s director of civil service, on June 6.
It also emerged that Sturgeon did not tell the MSPs that he had also met with Salmond’s former chief of staff at his parliamentary office and discussed the fact that there were issues “of a sexual nature” related to Salmond on March 29, 2018.
Any of those breaches of the Scottish government ministerial code could have resulted in her being forced to resign, with just six weeks before the Holyrood election, had she done so knowingly.
An investigation by Holyrood, which is due to publish its findings Tuesday morning after a lengthy investigation into the government and Sturgeon’s conduct, is expected to find that Sturgeon misled parliament about his dealings with Salmond, but did not knowingly do so. .
Hamilton’s ruling, which follows a two-year investigation, is expected to mean that a vote of no confidence to be cast by Scottish Conservatives on Tuesday will not win the support of other opposition parties.
Salmond had alleged that Sturgeon had allowed public funds to be misused by not admitting defeat quickly enough after he mounted a legal challenge against that investigation in August 2018.
He was paid £ 512,000 in legal costs after he won that challenge in January 2019, while the government’s legal costs approached £ 100,000.
