THE Scottish Government will not hand over evidence relating to Alex Salmond’s 2019 judicial review action to a Holyrood inquiry.

The Government said it was exerting its legal privilege as it refused to pass on the evidence to the inquiry into the former first minister’s successful action against it.

The committee holding the inquiry published a new tranche of evidence received from the Scottish Government this afternoon. Among the documents was a letter from the Scottish Government setting out the background to the judicial review.

The letter said it was asserting “its privilege over all communications it holds about or in relation to legal advice to the Scottish Government and litigation involving the Scottish Government”.

It goes on: “That is not to say that the Scottish Government will not give a full account of its legal position at various points, just that, in accordance with usual practice, it will not disclose the internal processes of taking and receiving advice or the scope and nature of any requests for legal advice or any legal advice provided.”

Generally the legal advice ministers receive is not made public, but this convention can be waived if ministers, law officers and legal advisers chose to do so.

The Committee on the Scottish Government Handling of Harassment Complaints is looking into how ministers dealt with sexual misconduct claims against Salmond.

The former SNP leader took action against the Government at the Court of Session. The action got the probe set aside and forced ministers to admit the investigation had been “tainted by apparent bias”.

The committee sought evidence from the Scottish Government including how the complaints policy against Salmond was developed, the judicial review and on the investigation of the complaints themselves.

They had asked for evidence to be submitted by the end of July, but this deadline was not met. Permanent secretary Leslie Evans said the need for legal checks on the documents, plus disruption from the Covid-19 crisis, meant they may not be ready until the end of August or later.

The Scottish Government supplied an 11-page account of the judicial review and two footnotes, taking up another 14 pages.

The judicial review account reveals the Scottish Government believed its probe was flawed in December 2018 when the former first minister recovered evidence from it.

This evidence included calendar entries and text messages. They showed the chief investigating officer into the complaints, Judith Mackinnon, had been in prior contact with his accusers.

The Scottish Government’s own complaints procedure stated the officer investigating complaints “will have had no prior involvement with any aspect of the matter being raised”.

The Government said “the reasonable observer would conclude that there was a real possibility that she could not act impartially” as she was required to.

They added that on January 2, 2019, Evans concluded the Scottish Government should concede the review proceedings because of the “apparent bias issue”.

Additionally, a footnote included in the tranche of documents showed Mackinnon discussed the cases of Mrs A and Mrs B with the Government’s director of people, Nicola Richards, in December 2017.

A month later – on January 16 – Richards appointed Mackinnon as the investigating officer when Mrs A formally made a complaint.

In an email titled “options” from October 19, 2018, seven weeks after Salmond began his judicial review, Mackinnon told Richards that Mrs B had “raised her complaint directly with me”.

Alex Salmond was acquitted of all charges of sexual assault at the High Court in Edinburgh on March 23.

The committee will begin in a fortnight, beginning with the permanent secretary.