Another fine mess

The Scotsman and The Herald have something of a field day with the possible impact of yesterday's Court of Session judgement on the elections (see yesterday's post here). But it is far from clear that we are any further forward.

The Scotsman claims:

Lawyers representing 30 prisoners said the government's failure to remedy the problem could cost the taxpayer millions of pounds, and The Scotsman has learned that the lawyers are now seeking an interdict to prevent the Holyrood elections from going ahead...
It is expected the interdict will be lodged at the Court of Session by the end of February, although experts believe that it is extremely unlikely to be successful.

We are not told why the 'experts' believe this.

The Herald comes to a not dissimilar conclusion:

If these elections are incompatible with the ECHR, as the Court of Session has ruled, what are the implications? There are two. The first is to postpone the elections until the law is reformed. That is clearly a non-starter, given the unacceptably disproportionate impact the convention would have on a free election, which is, after all, democracy in action. The other is to press ahead with the poll and face up to the consequences.
These have already become apparent. Lawyers intend to seek an interim interdict against Scottish Executive ministers to stop the elections. If that fails, they will try for compensation for prisoners whose human rights were denied by the continued ban.

Well, they're probably right, though I would have thought that denial of voting rights is about as serious a breach of human rights as you could get. But let us see how the proposed interdict gets on. But it's a mess, whatever way you look at it.