< back to Senior Counsel
Alan Dewar QC
Queen's Counsel : 2002
Year Of Call : 1989
Treasurer of the Faculty of Advocates
Areas of practice
|
|
Summary
Alan Dewar QC has a busy civil practice and has, over the years, appeared in a wide range of civil cases, mainly in the fields of commercial and administrative law. He has acted for and advised companies and public authorities on public procurement issues. He has represented companies and individuals who have been prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. And he has taken part in a number of planning inquiries, fatal accident inquiries, defamation actions, intellectual property disputes, and licensing cases. In 2007 he was elected Treasurer of the Faculty of Advocates.
Experience
Alan Dewar has extensive advocacy experience arising from practising as a solicitor and advocate for more than 25 years. This includes Inner and Outer House experience in the Court of Session as well as a number of appearances in the House of Lords and Privy Council. Alan Dewar was junior counsel to the Orkney Inquiry; standing junior counsel to a number of Government Departments including the Scotland Office; an Advocate Depute for three years; and also has significant experience in planning and other inquiries, and before various Tribunals.
Professional appointments
- Writer to the Signet 1986
- Partner, Thomson & Baxter WS 1986 to 1988
- Junior Counsel to the Orkney Inquiry 1991 to 1992
- Standing Junior Counsel to Department of Trade & Industry 1992 to 1996
- Advocate Depute 1996 to 1999
- Standing Junior Counsel to the Forestry Commission 1999 to 2000
- Standing Junior Counsel to the Scotland Office 2000 to 2002
- Member of the Council of the Faculty of Advocates 2002 to 2005 and 2006 to present
- Treasurer of the Faculty of Advocates 2007 to present
- Special Counsel appointed under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005
Selected Cases
- 28530/95, X v United Kingdom, 19 January 1998 - an admissibility case before the European Commission on Human Rights in Strasbourg.
- Secretary of State for Trade and Industry v Hasta International Limited 1998 SLT 73 - concerned with the winding up of a company involved in pyramid selling on just and equitable grounds.
- Wray v Associated Newspapers 2000 SCCR 819 - a defamation action in which the Lord Ordinary, after proof, awarded a Member of Parliament damages of £60,000.
- R v HM Advocate 2003 SC (PC) 21 - a Privy Council appeal concerned with whether the Lord Advocate had any right to continue with a prosecution where the reasonable time guarantee had been violated in the pre-trial period.
- Napier v Scottish Ministers 2004 SLT 555 - concerned with whether the slopping out regime in Barlinnie Prison and other related prison conditions amounted to a violation of Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention.
- X v British Broadcasting Corporation 2005 SLT 796 - concerned with the tension between the Pursuer's Article 8 right to privacy and the Defenders' Article 10 freedom of expression rights.
- Scottish Ministers v Beggs 2007 SLT 235 - an appeal to the House of Lords arising from a finding of contempt of court relating to the unlawful opening of the respondent's privileged correspondence.
- Burnett v Grampian Fire and Rescue Services 2007 SLT 613 concerned with the duty of care of firefighters to owners of neighbouring property when attempting to extinguish a fire, in which Lord Macphail disagreed with the approach of the English Court of Appeal in Capital and Counties plc v Hampshire County Council [1997] 3 WLR 331.
