Legal Challenge to Lib Dem Alistair Carmichael's Election Opens
Witnesses are expected to begin giving evidence today in a legal challenge to the election of Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael.
A four-day Election Court hearing will get under way at the Court of Session buildings in Edinburgh.
Four of Mr Carmichael's constituents, known as the petitioners in the case, have launched a bid to oust him after he admitted allowing the leak of a confidential memo which wrongly claimed First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wanted David Cameron to remain in Downing Street at May's general election.
Judges earlier ruled the next stage of proceedings could take place in the Scottish capital rather than in Mr Carmichael's Orkney and Shetland constituency.
Evidence given by witnesses will not be broadcast live as with earlier legal hearings, but submissions from each side in the case will be televised.
At the hearing in September, judge Lady Paton, who is sitting with Lord Matthews, said questioning of witnesses would be ''more adversarial than inquisitorial''.
Mr Carmichael's legal team were given until October 26 to lodge a list of witnesses they intend to call, which could include the MP.
In a Channel 4 interview, Mr Carmichael, the former Scottish Secretary, initially denied having prior knowledge of the memo leak, which emerged around a month before voters went to the polls.
Following a Cabinet Office inquiry he admitted he had allowed his special adviser Euan Roddin to release details of the document which appeared in the Daily Telegraph on April 3.
The petitioners argue his actions call into question his integrity as an individual and his suitability to represent the constituency at Westminster.
The legal challenge - funded via a crowd-funding appeal - is being brought under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983
The case is thought to be the first election petition brought in Scotland since 1965.