Outer House quashes evidentiary decisions of Standards Commission for Scotland in complaint against Glasgow councillor

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2026] CSOH 79
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Court of Session Outer House
• Judge:
  Lord Sandison

A social media post made by the petitioner, alleged to have breached Glasgow City Council’s code of conduct, was referred to the Standards Commission for Scotland. After the commission refused to admit numerous pieces of evidence the petitioner sought to lodge in her defence, a petition for judicial review was presented to the Outer House of the Court of Session.

The petition was heard by Lord Sandison, with Daniel Byrne KC and Ross Cameron appearing for the petitioner and Paul Reid KC for the respondent.

Alleged breach of councillors’ conduct standards

In August 2024, the petitioner – a Scottish Labour councillor for the Canal ward of Glasgow City Council – reshared a journalist’s post on X regarding cuts to teacher numbers in Glasgow. The journalist’s story alleged that the council’s finance director had deliberately altered the wording of policy materials provided to councillors, such that the cuts were framed in terms of “reform and transformation”. The petitioner’s re-post was accompanied by a comment of her own, decrying that “any Council Officer would abuse their influence to wilfully and cynically mislead Cllrs & the public” and calling for an investigation.

In response, the council’s finance director complained to the ethical standards commissioner, alleging that the petitioner’s post had breached various provisions of the councillors’ code of conduct. Cited provisions included paragraph 3.1 of the code, which obliges councillors to “treat everyone with courtesy and respect”, including on social media; and paragraphs 24 and 25 of an annex to the code, which enjoin councillors to “project a positive image of the Council” and avoid raising “adverse matters relating to the performance, conduct or capability of employees in public”.

After the commissioner concluded that the petitioner had breached the code, a hearing was scheduled to be held by the Standards Commission for Scotland in February 2026. Prior to the hearing, the commission refused to accept 12 of the 20 documents lodged by the petitioner as evidence. Although an appeal to the sheriff principal against a decision made by the commission at a hearing lies under section 22 of the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Act 2000, the petitioner sought to invoke the supervisory jurisdiction of the Court of Session in seeking judicial review of the commission’s evidentiary decision.

Rejection of certain documents outwith commission’s lawful powers

Beginning his decision by examining the competency of the petition in light of the availability of a statutory remedy, Lord Sandison reasoned: “Although it is eminently possible to imagine a different course having been taken, it is by this point in the development of the law quite clear that … recourse to the supervisory jurisdiction is a remedy of last resort, regardless of the existence of any express or implicit ouster of that jurisdiction by any relevant statutory provision, and indeed regardless of the source of the putative alternative remedy. The language of competency is, however, difficult to reconcile with the undenied existence of what has come to be regarded as an undefined (indeed, sometimes said to be indefinable) discretionary power in the court to grant access to the supervisory jurisdiction in exceptional or special cases notwithstanding the existence of an alternative remedy of one kind or another.”

He continued: “One clear aspect of the law as it is currently understood is that, in order to bar recourse to the supervisory jurisdiction, the alternative remedy must be ‘effective’ … In other words, the remedy must be one that is apt to deal with the mischief which is properly complained of … [I]n the present case, the mischief which is complained of is that the petitioner is to be subject to a hearing before the commission which, she maintains, would contravene the principles of natural justice or would follow a procedure which is unlawful or at least has been arrived at irrationally. There is no dispute that she has no remedy of appeal to the Sheriff Principal at this stage, but would have to wait until after the ex hypothesi defective hearing had taken place and reached an adverse conclusion.”

Finding that such a state of affairs rendered the petition competent, Lord Sandison turned to the merits of the complaint: “The core criticism of the commission’s decisions in this case is that they will have the effect of depriving the petitioner of the opportunity to be heard in relation to matters upon which she wishes to be heard in connection with the proceedings against her, without adequate justification. The evidence which she wishes to put forward has been refused by the commission on the ground of its supposed irrelevancy to the matters which are properly the subject of those proceedings. Although the commission has published guidance as to how it may deal with matters of evidential relevancy, it should not be forgotten that the question of whether particular evidence is relevant to an issue which the commission has to determine is in the final analysis a matter of law and as such cannot merely be one to be dealt with entirely as the commission sees fit.”

He added: “That said, views may reasonably differ as to whether a piece of evidence is relevant or irrelevant in any particular case. There can be degrees of relevance, and the nature of the underlying substantive decision that has to be made and the proportionality of admitting substantial quantities of peripheral evidence are all matters that require to be factored in to what may well be a difficult question in at least some circumstances. The degree of scrutiny which the rule of law requires to be applied to a decision of the commission does not extend to the court simply substituting its views on relevancy for those of the commission. The questions on review will be whether the commission proceeded on a proper basis as to the basic legal principles to be applied, and then applied them; whether it explained its reasoning satisfactorily; and ultimately whether it reached a decision falling within the relatively generous ambit of decision-making open to it.”

After reviewing the nature of the various documents rejected by the commission, Lord Sandison concluded: “In summary, then, it may clearly be determined that it lay outwith the lawful powers of the commission, properly informed as to the applicable principles (and all the while making full allowance for matters on which opinion might reasonably differ), to reject documents 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10, and its decision to do so falls to be reduced. Its decision to reject documents 1, 5, 6, 11, 19 and 20 fell within the ambit of its powers as they require properly to be understood … There is also force in the petitioner’s submission that some stated reasons are simply conclusions without the reasons for those conclusions being either articulated or self-evident. Had it been necessary to do so, I would have found that the stated reasons failed the Wordie test, in that they left an informed reader in real and substantial doubt as to what the basis for the decisions was.”

The petition was accordingly allowed, with the commission’s decisions to refuse to admit the petitioner’s evidence reduced to the extent described in the final foregoing paragraph.