The Attorney-General suffered the humiliation yesterday of being fined £5,000 for employing an illegal immigrant.

The UK Border Agency imposed the fine on Baroness Scotland of Asthal — half the maximum possible — because she had co-operated fully with the investigation and taken steps to check the documents of 27-year-old Loloahi Tapui.

But, it found, she had failed to comply with a law that she had actively promoted when it went through Parliament and not kept copies of documents proving that her employee, a housekeeper, had a right to work in the UK.

On a personal level, many may sympathise with the Attorney who has proved popular in her post. But can she credibly remain in it?

The Attorney-General is at the apex of the criminal justice system. She is the ultimate enforcer of its laws and the minister responsible for the Crown Prosecution Service. In a statement yesterday she apologised for her “inadvertent error” and accepted that she had made a “technical breach of the rules”.

The verdict of the legal profession is split. The Bar Council, of which the Attorney is ex officio head, declined to comment. But Lord Pannick, QC, the cross-bench peer and barrister, was in no doubt that she should not be pilloried for a minor administrative offence.

“Of course she should not resign or be sacked for a mistake for which she has apologised and for which she is paying an administrative penalty. She is a first-class Attorney-General and should be allowed to get on with an important and difficult job without opposition politicians trying to use her to score political points.”

Supporters also point out that her fine is a civil offence as opposed to a criminal one. In other words, a penalty imposed by a regulatory system and not imposed by a criminal court, although non-payment can lead to enforcement under the criminal justice system.

A civil fine is not thought of in the same way as a criminal punishment and does not carry the same stigma. Most commonly such fines are used for minor motoring offences such as illegal parking or failing to pay the congestion charge.

One QC said: “It was a pretty technical thing — she forgot to copy the documents. It’s not a hanging offence.”

And true, it is not in the same league as when Sir Allan Green, then Director of Public Prosecutions, was picked up in 1991 by police for allegedly kerb-crawling. He immediately resigned.

But it is still about public perception. Professor Gary Slapper, director of the Open University law programme, said: “They say this was only an ‘administrative penalty’ but there is really no such thing in this context.

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