When ministers brand dissent as terrorism, it takes the courts to remind them that justice still matters — and that the public’s rights aren’t up for arbitrary proscription, argues Herald columnist Calum Steele

I suspect I’ve more experience of the courts than your average Joe. From the District Court to the High Court, I spent no small amount of time in them and, whether giving evidence or ensuring the solemnity of proceedings, they are without question one of the most important pillars of our democratic systems.

I’ve given evidence in trials that made me question the wisdom of wasting time on what, in the cold light of day, were crimes worthy of arrest at the time but hardly worthy of a conviction many months later. I’ve sat beside those accused of rape – where the evidence was overwhelming – only to see them acquitted, and I led a former colleague from the dock after he was convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice in the murder of the Orkney waiter Shamsuddin Mahmood. Courts see it all.

Going to court was a big thing, and no matter how familiar you were with the process, there was always a degree of unease that you hadn’t adequately prepared for your evidence, or that a new lawyer, unbound by conventional niceties and keen to forge a name, would run you ragged in the witness box. Worse still if you encountered a fiscal or sheriff having a bad day, where you were at as much risk of a tongue-lashing as the accused was – if found guilty. You only had to cross the formidable Sheriff James Fraser or the equally formidable Fiscal David Hingston once to never make that mistake again (even if sometimes you were never quite sure what it was that caught their ire in the first place).

Beyond their........

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