Justice 1 Committee, 26 Jan 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Official Report 310KB pdf

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Petitions

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Family Law (PE770)

Item 4 on the agenda is petition PE770, by Patricia Orazio. I refer members to a briefing note that has been prepared by the clerks and which sets out the background to the petition. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to investigate the apparent widespread undue influence of children by family members after parental separation, to establish family law centres with responsibility for drawing up action plans or contracts with parents to promote shared parenting wherever possible and to create children's law centres to support children who are involved in family law cases.

The petition was referred to the Justice 1 Committee because we had expressed an interest in the proposed family law bill. Members will know that a final decision has not been taken about which committee will lead on the family law bill, but I thought that it would be useful to make members aware of the petition. Given that this is our quarterly round of petitions, I wanted to get the petition on the agenda in fairness to the petitioner. Whether we discuss it fully today is a matter for the committee. I suggest that it would be better to give it more airtime when we are clear about whether we will deal with the family law bill.

It seems reasonable to do that and to put the petition on the agenda of the committee that handles the family law bill. There is no point in duplication of effort.

Members are all like-minded.

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Miscarriages of Justice (Aftercare) (PE477)

Item 5 is PE477, by the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation. I again refer members to a background note that has been prepared by the clerks. The petition calls on Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to provide assistance in setting up an aftercare programme in the form of a halfway home to help people who have been wrongly incarcerated and have served long terms of imprisonment or whose conviction has been annulled by the appeal court.

Members will note that we have had late correspondence from the Minister for Justice on the petition. The letter updates the committee on her current thinking. A number of options are open to the committee. Members will recall that at the previous discussion on the petition the committee was particularly keen to pursue some of the issues that it raises. Members may also recall that independent of the committee's work, I and a former member of the Justice 1 Committee, Bill Butler, had been pursuing the matter prior to the petition coming before us. We met the Minister for Justice with the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation to assist in the process. I felt that the meeting was very positive. As things stand, the Executive has an open mind on the petition, although members will see from the correspondence that at this point it is not abundantly clear which aspects of the petition the Executive will act on.

It is open to the committee to push the matter further if members so wish. I invite members to comment.

One option that is open to us is to write to the Executive to press it on when we will get more information on its progress on the matters in the petition. We could also consider whether to bring representatives of MOJO to the committee—if we have time—to hear from them about issues that they are pursuing. We could continue to monitor developments as part of our work programme, or we could do anything else that the committee wishes.

I am aware of your interest in the matter, convener. As one of the newer members of the committee, this is the first time I have considered the petition. I am keen to hear more about it, so it would be appropriate to ask representatives of MOJO and the Scottish Executive to give evidence. I would like to hear the justification for the Executive's current position. At face value, the petition strikes me as being a not unreasonable request. I would like to hear the rationale behind it and what the Scottish Executive's ideas are.

Far be it from me to give the committee more work, but I would like to wrap in options (a) and (b) under paragraph 5 of the note by the clerk. I think that you should write to the Executive and to MOJO for further information. Bearing in mind the minister's letter, which says that on-going work is being done by the Executive but that some work is still outstanding, it might be reasonable to find out from the minister when she believes the outstanding work will be complete. Time should be built in for MOJO to respond to the Executive, and then evidence could be taken from both.

Generally speaking, all members of the committee who have dealt with the issue are supportive and know about the work that you have done on it, convener. We are supportive of the general concept, and I know that people feel that people who have been wrongfully incarcerated are let down again by the justice system when they are released. It is reasonable to give the Executive fair warning that the committee intends to take evidence, to give it the opportunity to provide an indicative timetable for when its work will be done.

Margaret Smith's suggestion is reasonable. We obviously have concerns, but if the Executive is responding positively to MOJO, that is good and we would want to support that. However, should the issue not be resolved, we would want to be kept informed of what is happening. We might want to take the matter further. The two-step approach that Margaret Smith suggested is probably helpful.

I concur with that. It might be important to press the Executive on its timetable and to tell it that we intend to incorporate the issue into our work programme, so that we can get an indication of when the Executive would be likely to respond. We can then see how that fits with our programme. I detect a general interest among committee members in getting more information from MOJO. Notwithstanding our heavy workload, it would be useful to do that. In the first instance, however, we shall write to the Minister for Justice to ask for a timetable for action.