OUTGOING Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC has filed a motion against Martin Keatings to recover the costs of the People’s Action Against Section 30, which could run into six figures.

The action aimed to show the Scottish Government has the power hold a second independence referendum without Westminster’s “consent”, but Keatings was refused leave to appeal to the UK Supreme Court.

Keatings said Wolffe – who sits in the Scottish Cabinet – is pursuing costs for a case in which he had “done nothing but disrupt”.

He wrote on his blog: “Every motion (including the ones they dropped last minute after we’d spent time and money drafting responses to them) were followed by the words ‘assume our own costs’.”

Keatings said Wolffe's intention was to run up costs in the case: “After all, this is the individual who put the words ‘it’s not for the pursuer to stand in the shoes of parliamentarians’ into a legal response. Of course, the ‘pursuer’ in this case, although named as me, is 10,000 members of the electorate.”

Throughout the case, he said Wolffe was asked repeatedly to say who he was working for – the Scottish Parliament or Scottish Government – because he continued to advance the latter’s arguments after they had withdrawn.

“Put simply, the Scottish Government withdrew, and the Lord Advocate, who is supposed to be non-political, continued to act as hatchet man,” said Keatings.

“This is the cost of asking a reasonable question of law, which politicians have failed to answer for over 22 years which has still not been answered because of the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Government.”

Keatings questioned why an order for costs had been lodged in view of Lord President Lord Carloway’s remarks in the last paragraph of his ruling. Carloway wrote: “Before leaving the matter of expenses, it is worth commenting that the figures, which were given to Lord Ordinary about the potential level of expense, provide considerable cause for concern in relation to access to justice.

“The sum of £65,000 per party, which the Lord Ordinary fixed upon, is worrying, if this is thought to be reasonable in a case which involves no substantial dispute of fact and is resolved at a legal debate … If the cost of pursuing an action, which does not even require proof, is to amount to sums of the nature contemplated by the Lord Ordinary, the court, and perhaps also the Auditor, will require to consider what steps require to be taken to remedy the position.”

Keatings added: “The fact that the Lord President himself has questioned the costs in this case, and indeed the Gill Review [of Scottish civil courts] itself, is an indication that one legacy from this case may be ... greater access for public litigation – which is a good thing.”