Justice Committee
Meeting date: Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Official Report
467KB pdf
Fatal Road Collisions
Agenda item 5 is on fatal road collisions. Do we want to continue to work on the issue, or do we think that we have taken the matter as far as we can?
I am mindful of the comments that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice made in his response to our report on the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Bill. The stage 1 debate on the bill, which takes place tomorrow, may be an opportunity to make any points that we want to make. What are members’ views?
As we have taken evidence on the issue, I think that we should keep the matter open until after work on the bill has concluded. We can make a quick decision after that.
In the Scottish Government’s response to our stage 1 report on the bill—which is one of the many supporting papers for today’s meeting—the cabinet secretary states:
“I am not persuaded that it is necessary to give bereaved families a statutory right to obtain copies of the investigation papers relating to fatal road deaths but, given the concerns raised by the Committee, I have asked my officials to discuss this matter further with COPFS to ensure that appropriate information is passed to families where possible.”
The cabinet secretary has not agreed to a statutory right, but it might be interesting to raise the point in tomorrow’s debate.
One point that we put to the cabinet secretary is that families should have not so much a right to be given the information as a right to ask for it. We can probably take a decision on whether to close off our consideration of the issue only after we have debated the bill.
Perhaps you can highlight that distinction tomorrow to see whether something might be done during the amendment stages.
We will now move into private session for agenda items 6 and 7.
12:13
Meeting continued in private until 12:47.