Court fails to stop lawyers having smoke

From today officials at the Court of Session in Parliament House have banned employees from smoking outside the building and wants officers of the court to do the same.

But, crucially, solicitors are not employed by the court service and don’t have to comply.

Pipe-smoking QC Donald Findlay said: “I won’t smoke in the colonnades just to make a point. But until somebody shows me a law which I am breaking, I will do what I like within the law.

“I will light up my pipe, if I want to have a smoke, unless somebody can point to the rule of law which saws I am not allowed to do so. In which case I will, of course, comply with it. People have to have a legal basis for telling me I am not allowed to do something.”