In 2000 I petitioned the Scottish Parliament with PE 306 which was in a similar vein to this petition. Then, after having been under consideration for over three years with the parliament the petition was dismissed without reason.
The Public Petitions Committee summary of the petition showed that the committee had closed the petition in December 2002 when in fact the terms of the petition were considered by the Justice 2 Committee on 04 March and the Public Petitions Committee on 18 March 2003. The latter anomaly has recently been corrected and the meeting of 04 March can be found here: http://archive.scottish.parliament.uk/business/committees/historic/justice1/mop-03/j2mop0304.htm
The meeting of the Justice 2 Committee, of 4th March, was not insignificant. The Justice Minister Jim Wallace was questioned by the committee on my submissions regarding membership of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh and the Masons among the judiciary. The Minister said he had not had time to read my submissions but he would do and revert to the committee. There is no record of this having happened.
Furthermore despite the fact that the committee had asked me to provide examples of cases where there was a perception that freemasonry had influenced a court or tribunal the committee did not publish the submissions I made in this regard.
I believe that this censorship was draconian given that details of own case, Stott v Minogue 2000 SLT (Sh Ct) 25, & GWD 36-1386, - which spawned the petition – and the decision by the Social Security Commissioner, Ref: CS1/136/02. are in part matters of public record, or have been reported widely in the press and legal journals and are the two most important Scottish cases that deal with the influence of freemasonry in the justice system.
Having sought to determine my rights to challenge the existing law which allows non-disclosure of (secret) membership of fraternal organisations by decision makers by the courts, my elected representatives, and the previous government (which subverted the public petitions process), I am now attempting to resolve this anomaly with a new government, which claims to be open and accountable to the people of Scotland.