Plenary, 22 Jun 2000

Meeting date: Thursday, June 22, 2000

Official Report 747KB pdf

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Bail, Judicial Appointments etc (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1

We move to our main debate, on motion S1M-984, in the name of Jim Wallace, on the general principles of the Bail, Judicial Appointments etc (Scotland) Bill.

I ask members who are not staying for the debate to leave quickly and quietly.

I would like to thank the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, the Subordinate Legislation Committee and the conveners of both committees for their co-operation in dealing with the bill so quickly and efficiently. I am fully aware that the timetable has been very tight and far from ideal. There are special circumstances attached to the bill; this will not be our normal practice.

I welcome the fact that the Justice and Home Affairs Committee has given broad agreement to the general principles of the bill. In my speech, I will suggest some constructive amendments that I hope will address the specific concerns that have been raised.

The principal aim of the bill is to bring aspects of our law into line with the European convention on human rights. It covers three distinct subjects: bail, judicial appointments and district courts. It is clear from two recent Strasbourg cases that our current law on bail is incompatible with the convention. It is agreed on all sides that the law must be changed—the question is how it should be changed. The bill proposes two main amendments to current procedures. First, it places a new statutory duty on sheriffs to consider bail automatically when an accused first appears in court. Secondly, it repeals the bail exclusions that prevent a sheriff from considering bail at all when a person is accused of murder or treason or is accused of certain violent or sexual offences and has a previous conviction for such an offence.

I will deal with the statutory criteria and some of the points that are made in the Justice and Home Affairs Committee's report. First, there is Professor Gane's suggestion that the bill should include specific statutory criteria to guide the courts in making decisions on bail. I agree that that approach is possible, but I do not agree that it is necessary, desirable or achievable in the time available. The only purpose of the bill in that respect is European convention on human rights compliance. A statutory right to bail, with statutory exceptions, would require us to codify Scots common law as modified by Strasbourg jurisprudence. That would be complex and difficult and there would be an unacceptable risk of getting it wrong, particularly as we are working against such a tight time scale.

In any case, there is considerable merit in relying on the common law. Common law offers well-established guidance on when the courts may refuse bail and the bill will allow our courts to interpret and, if necessary, develop that common law in line with convention jurisprudence. Of course, convention jurisprudence is often a moving target. This is the best and safest way forward and therefore I do not propose any amendments to introduce statutory bail criteria.

Secondly, there is an understandable concern about how the removal of current bail exclusions will affect victims. I do not think that the abolition of bail exclusions will endanger victims in any way, but I want to be doubly sure of that. In the first place, I intend to ensure that the court always has information about possible risk to the victim when reaching decisions on bail. We want the police to evaluate such risks thoroughly in all cases involving violent or sexual offences. We have already agreed the principle with the police and the Crown and are now engaged in discussing detailed procedures.

In addition, it is only right that victims should be notified as quickly as possible if an accused person is released on bail—and of the conditions of that release. Police forces and procurators fiscal already have local procedures to notify victims and witnesses of bail decisions, particularly in domestic violence cases. I want to ensure that those procedures are routinely and effectively implemented where there is any threat of risk to a victim or witness. We are already discussing possible arrangements with the police and I hope that we can conclude that work shortly. There is also a wider strategy for victims' issues, as victims are, and will remain, a priority for the Executive.

In the light of the High Court's decision in the Starrs and the Chalmers case—that for the purposes of the ECHR a temporary sheriff is not an independent and impartial tribunal—the bill provides for the abolition of the office of temporary sheriff and creates a new judicial office of part-time sheriff with statutory security of tenure. No one has disputed the need for a new office to provide urgent relief for our sheriff courts, even allowing for the 19 additional permanent appointments that we have made since November last year.

The Justice and Home Affairs Committee expressed a strong view that our proposals do not go far enough to ensure proper statutory security of tenure and it was consequently concerned that the new office could also fall foul of the ECHR. Although we were satisfied that the bill as introduced was compatible with the ECHR, we have re-examined the issue in the light of the committee's concerns. It is essential that the procedures surrounding judicial appointments, reappointments and removal from office should guarantee the independence and impartiality of the relevant postholder.

It is therefore my intention to introduce two Executive amendments that will put matters beyond doubt. The first relates to the appointment of the tribunal authorised to remove part-time sheriffs. The bill currently provides for that tribunal to be appointed by the Scottish ministers after consulting the Lord President of the Court of Session. We propose to amend that provision so that the Lord President alone is responsible for appointing the tribunal; consequently, Scottish ministers will have no hand in the process. That removes any possible doubt about the independence of the tribunal that will have the power to dismiss part-time sheriffs from office.

Secondly, as the bill stands, part-time sheriffs will be appointed for a period of five years and may then be reappointed by Scottish ministers. Concerns have been expressed about whether that could be seen to undermine part-time sheriffs' independence and impartiality. That said, we believe that we need some flexibility on the number and disposition of part-time sheriffs. Such flexibility would be lost if those appointed held office until they were 70 and their appointments could not be terminated unless they were unfit for office.

As it is by no means certain that we will need the same number of part-time sheriffs for all time, we propose to introduce amendments to provide greater security of tenure for part-time sheriffs while maintaining the necessary flexibility. The amendments will provide that any part-time sheriff coming to the end of a five-year term who wishes to seek reappointment will, with certain limited exceptions, automatically be reappointed by Scottish ministers. Those exceptions are: where the person in question has reached the age of 69; where a sheriff principal recommends that the part-time sheriff should not be reappointed; where the part-time sheriff has not sat for at least 50 days during the five-year period; and, finally, where an order has been made with Parliament's approval to reduce the total number of part-time sheriffs.

I should emphasise that the existence of any of those circumstances will not necessarily preclude the reappointment of a person as a part-time sheriff; it simply means that if one of the conditions applies, reappointment is at the discretion of Scottish ministers rather than automatic.

Taken together, those amendments should meet in full the Justice and Home Affairs Committee's ECHR concerns about the new procedures for the appointment and removal of part-time sheriffs. We will of course be happy to explain and discuss our proposals in more detail during stage 2 consideration of the bill.

I also want to address the Subordinate Legislation Committee's concern about the order-making power covering appointments. The order provides that in appointing part-time sheriffs, Scottish ministers shall comply with any procedures that may be set out in regulations; but it does not require the Executive to make such regulations in the first place. I give a firm undertaking that we will consult on such regulations and introduce draft regulations for the Parliament's consideration as soon as possible after the summer recess. I am also happy to give a similar undertaking about the corresponding power to make such regulations for the appointment of justices.

Finally, in response to a recent request from the Lord President, we will introduce one additional amendment on judicial appointments. It will provide a power, subject to the Parliament's approval, to vary the number of inner-house judges. While the size of the outer house has grown significantly in recent years, the size of the inner house has remained constant. That has implications for the efficient and timely handling of appeals generally, among other things. We will lodge an appropriate amendment for consideration at stage 2.

Does the minister think that a sheriff who is relieved of his duties should have the same right of appeal as everyone else?

Lord James is referring to full-time sheriffs rather than part-time sheriffs. He will be aware that we have in place procedures for the removal of full-time sheriffs that have recently been applied and tested in the courts. This bill does not deal with full-time sheriffs.

The third major set of proposals relates to the district courts. The bill prevents local authorities from bringing prosecutions in the district court in future, for reasons that require little explanation. More fundamentally, the bill introduces a distinction between full and signing justices. The former will be able to exercise judicial functions while the latter will be restricted to duties such as authenticating documents and signatures. The bill provides explicit statutory security of tenure for full justices because of their judicial role. It excludes ex officio and councillor justices from that judicial category.

I will explain the provisions on councillor and ex officio justices. I want to make it clear that the bill is in no way an attack on the integrity of our district courts. I value the principles of local justice and I want to recognise and put on record the integrity and civic commitment of our justices. I would not seek to remove ex officio and councillor justices from the bench unless I felt it was necessary to do so to protect the district court from ECHR challenge.

I have announced a wide-ranging review of the district courts that will go in tandem with this more immediate legislation. There is no hidden agenda. We are discussing the scope of that review openly with interested parties such as the District Courts Association. I am happy to take on board the committee's suggestion that we use the review to address concerns highlighted in its report.

As the minister will be aware, that issue was considered in some detail in the Subordinate Legislation Committee. The civil servants to whom we spoke said that the appointment of councillors as justices of the peace was compliant with the ECHR. Why, therefore, is the minister including the exclusion of councillors in this bill?

I saw that reference in the report and queried it. I think that there was a misunderstanding of what was said. What was meant—and if I am wrong I will make sure that it is corrected by the time Angus MacKay winds up—was that the problem as regards the ECHR was not the mode of appointment of justices but the fact that there were issues surrounding matters such as security of tenure. Ex officio justices could be dismissed by a motion of a political party. That would give rise to serious concerns. Indeed, as we saw with the Starrs and Chalmers case, there was a clear indication by the Court of Session that no impropriety was suggested—the perception of impropriety was the problem. We believe that that perception might exist with regard to justices acting in the district courts together with questions of security of tenure. That is why we are introducing the bill.

There is a suggestion that councillor justices might be able to remain on the bench if they are given statutory security of tenure and local authorities no longer retain fine income. I do not believe that that is the right way forward and I note that the committee has also expressed reservations about that approach. Seeking to divert fine income does not address the more general concern about the blurring of boundaries between political and judicial functions to which the Justice and Home Affairs Committee referred in its report. I, too, share that unease. Our solution is the best way of removing any perceived lack of independence and impartiality. As I said to Fergus Ewing, it is the perception that counts.

The committee asked us to say how we would deal with the negative impacts of the changes. I think that they will be containable. The number of cases dealt with by the district court has fallen by more than a third since 1992 and other justices are available to fill the gap. Councillor and ex officio justices represent 88 out of 817 bench-sitting justices and 84 additional justices are available who are fully trained but for whom bench duties have not been available.

On reflection, we believe that it would be desirable to bring the proposals for the removal of justices more closely into line with the corresponding arrangements for the removal of part-time sheriffs. We will therefore lodge amendments at stage 2 to create a tribunal for the removal of justices along exactly the same lines as the tribunal for removing part-time sheriffs. It will be appointed by the Lord President and will comprise a sheriff principal, a legally qualified member with at least 10 years' experience and one other member. We will also lodge an amendment to allow councillor justices to continue to sit on local justice committees, in response to representations that have been made to us by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

I welcome the Justice and Home Affairs Committee's balanced report and its general support for the principles of the bill. I hope that members will accept that we have been prepared to listen and respond constructively to the concerns that have been raised by both committees and by others. The bill will be better for these amendments and I am grateful for the co-operation and assistance of the committees in dealing with this important bill at very short notice. I commend the bill to members.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees to the general principles of the Bail, Judicial Appointments etc (Scotland) Bill.

I acknowledge what the minister has said in thanking the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, but he will probably not be surprised to hear that in my capacity as the convener of that committee I have some hard words to say about how we have had to deal with the bill.

From the committee's report, members will see that we have had only a very short time to consider the bill. The report is the closest any committee has yet come to refusing to agree the principles of an Executive bill. Only the possibility of the bill being amended at stage 2 prevented that conclusion being reached.

The committee has tried to respond to the Executive's request that the bill be treated as a matter of urgency and we understand the desire to get it passed as quickly as possible. After all, there has been severe and widespread criticism of the situation that has developed in our courts as a result of the case of Starrs and Chalmers, in which it was decided that a court that is presided over by a temporary sheriff is not an independent and impartial tribunal according to the ECHR. The consequent suspension of the use of temporary sheriffs has resulted in near crisis conditions in many Scottish courts.

It is therefore entirely understandable that the Executive wants to move quickly to resolve the problem. Equally understandable is the decision to use the legislative opportunity to deal with some other aspects of ECHR compliance. What has been less acceptable to the committee, however, has been the combination of delay in introducing the bill and the demand that it be dealt with in an extremely short time.

Given the introduction date of the bill, adherence to existing standing orders would have made it quite impossible to progress the bill even to this stage before the summer recess. Standing orders have had to be suspended, as for the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (Scotland) Bill, which has led to the almost farcical position in which we find ourselves today—debating the bill at stage 1 and voting on it at 5.30 pm, with amendments at stage 2 having to be lodged by 5.30 pm tomorrow.

There can be no doubt whatsoever that this was not what the consultative steering group had in mind when it designed the committee structure and standing orders of this Parliament. The committee had to begin its stage 1 considerations on the basis of a draft bill, before the bill was introduced, and this week members have been asked to lodge draft amendments with the clerks before today's debate, to allow the clerks to minimise the effect of having only 24 hours in which to work. To say the least, that is a wholly unsatisfactory state of affairs.

To add insult to injury, this turned out not to be quite such an uncontroversial bill as was originally promised. The committee should have had a greater opportunity to hear from other witnesses, especially as the Sheriffs Association told us that the outcome of part 2 of chapter 1, relating to part-time sheriffs, would be no more ECHR compliant than were temporary sheriffs and that a similar challenge would inevitably follow.

In addition, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee had to disadvantage witnesses considerably by asking them to respond to invitations at incredibly short notice. I am grateful to all the witnesses for accepting those invitations, although, on at least one occasion, the result was to add further to the problems in the Edinburgh sheriff court, as the sheriffs who gave evidence to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee could not be in two places at once.

I am also grateful to the members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and to the clerking team for their hard work, good humour and considerable forbearance throughout the brief but hectic progress of the bill thus far. Once again, they have shown their ability to work effectively under extreme pressure. I hope, for the Parliament's sake, that the clerks never invoke the European working time directive against us.

I also hope that the Executive will heed those criticisms. The Justice and Home Affairs Committee can deal with a heavy work load; its members have shown themselves capable of colossal amounts of work. What is becoming more and more difficult is dealing with that work load under the time constraints the Executive insists are necessary.

I shall now cease to speak as a committee convener and turn to the bill and the issue of bail. Once the European convention on human rights was incorporated, it was absolutely inevitable that some changes would have to be made to the law of Scotland. There is no point in adopting the ostrich approach—and I hope that no one will do that today. In the case of bail, changes were necessary. Without them, there would inevitably have been challenges. That would no doubt have happened at the worst possible time, in the context of a hugely emotional case with all the subjective issues it would have involved. It would have been irresponsible of the Executive not to ensure that such a situation was avoided. I am also convinced that when the changes are enacted, we will see little if any difference in the bail decisions in our courts. Suggesting otherwise, as some might, would be wrong.

Where, however, the representatives of victims organisations do indeed have a reasonable point is in the continuing demand that victims be informed of bail decisions. There is evidence that that is not happening. Victims should perhaps also be informed of the reasons for bail decisions. I am pleased that the minister is to look favourably on the suggestions that have been made by those organisations. I look forward to seeing the detail of his proposed amendments and I thank him for the concessions that he has made today.

The issue of temporary and part-time sheriffs is infinitely more problematic. I will not dwell on the length of time that it has taken the Executive to introduce proposals to correct the situation in our courts as a result of Starrs and Chalmers. What does need to be addressed, however, is the serious criticism that there are real flaws in the bill that mean that further challenges under the ECHR are inevitable unless the bill is amended. The first of those flaws is in the mechanism in section 6 for removing a part-time sheriff. The fact that the proposed tribunal was to comprise individuals who had been nominated by the Executive; the fact that it could have been argued that two out of the three members were not independent of the Executive; and the fact that no appeal mechanism seemed to have been provided gave cause for great concern that the section would not be compliant with the ECHR. In my view, there should be appeal mechanisms.

I thank the minister again for the concessions that he has made today and I look forward to seeing the detail of the amendments to assess whether, given the evidence that we have heard, they make the changes that are required.

I do not want to be misunderstood or for Ms Cunningham to feel that she has been misled in any way. I want to go back for a moment to the concerns that victims organisations expressed about bail. The changes that we are proposing will be procedural, not legislative amendments.

Yes, I was aware that although it might have been possible to legislate, it was equally likely that changes would be made by procedural means. Clearly it is better to make changes in the way the minister suggests, because that can be done far more quickly.

The second of the flaws in relation to temporary and part-time sheriffs lies in the fact that the appointment of the new part-time sheriffs is to run for only five years. The minister addressed the concerns in the Justice and Home Affairs Committee's report, but there seems to be potential for undermining the perception of the independence of those sheriffs. Given that that potential problem is the very point that brought about the current situation, it seems extraordinary that we might leave that same door open.

I am still not sure why we could not simply put part-time sheriffs on to permanent contracts and make them subject to the same mechanisms that apply to full-time sheriffs. However, the minister's concession today of automatic reappointment is welcome. Again, I look forward to seeing the detail of those amendments at stage 2—which, of course, will be next Tuesday morning and perhaps next Tuesday afternoon and perhaps next Wednesday morning as well.

The new procedures for hiring and firing—if I can use that phrase—justices of the peace will be more open and transparent. It has to be said that the measures in the bill as regards JPs would have been entirely in judicial hands, unlike the situation for part-time sheriffs, which was an interesting contradiction in the bill, but the decisions on personnel would still have been made by ministers. Again, I thank the minister for the concessions that he has made, because this was a matter of some concern to members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and to those from whom we took evidence.

Once again there is no appeal mechanism after removal or suspension. I heard what the minister said but I wonder whether he agrees, as evidence to the committee suggested, that that is likely to give rise to challenge. I would like the minister to comment in more detail on that in closing. As it is, the SNP's view is that such appeal mechanisms ought to be in the bill.

All members will have received letters protesting about the proposals that would effectively bar councillor justices of the peace from sitting on the bench. There are arguments for and against that. It is certainly unusual that JPs can be party political but sheriffs cannot—there is something of a contradiction there. There is conflicting evidence, however, on the need for an outright ban. It has been suggested that barring councillor JPs from adjudicating on cases involving the authority of which they are a member would have been sufficient. I would like the minister to say whether that was considered by the Executive before it came to the conclusion that an outright ban was the only way forward.

Finally, I am surprised by the omission of any mention of clerks of the court. I understand that while there has been no actual challenge to councillor JPs, there has been a challenge to the position of clerks of the court, who in the district courts are employees of the local authority. I should declare a past interest: in the 1980s I clerked in Dumbarton district court so I am well aware of their input, which is essential, vital and frequently welcome. JPs are not usually legally qualified and the clerks keep them right on the law.

I hear Bill Aitken laughing. He perhaps feels that that is not the case. I assure him that when I clerked in the district court it was the case. Perhaps the minister will explain why JPs are being legislated for and clerks are not, particularly since it is the position of the clerks that has been challenged.

The SNP will vote for the bill at stage 1, but our view is that there are serious issues that must be addressed before it reaches stage 3. The Minister for Justice has gone some way towards that, but there are other points that I hope he will take on board at stage 2 so that the bill at stage 3 is more acceptable. I hope that he and the rest of the Executive will take on board the very serious points I made as convener of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee about the time scales now imposed in two contemporaneous bills, which lead one to the conclusion that the scrutiny powers of this Parliament are seriously compromised.

Another day, another bill. Not another bill because our mission is to improve the lot of those who had a vision of this new Parliament transforming their lives to their benefit, but another bill necessitated by the Scotland Act 1998 and the rushed incorporation of the ECHR into the law of our land.

I make no apologies to Roseanna Cunningham for picking up this issue, because it is another bill that will not be considered as carefully or as rationally as it should be, over a reasonable period of time, but has been introduced and will presumably be approved today at stage 1 in what can only be described as a desperate situation.

I will give way now.

I said to Phil Gallie in a previous debate that, despite his criticisms of the incorporation of the ECHR and its effect on domestic law, the Conservatives did not vote against the bill that became the Scotland Act 1998 on second reading or third reading, or during the Commons' consideration of the Lords' amendments. Nor did the Tories raise any objection, as far as it is possible to discern, to the proposition that the Executive and Parliament should be required to act in a way that is compatible with the ECHR.

Furthermore, the Conservative party did not vote against the second or third reading of the bill that became the Human Rights Act 1998. In the end, they gave the bill a fair wind and wished it well. It seems to be a little hypocritical to stand up now and claim we should not have incorporated the ECHR.

The Conservatives back in 1997 recognised that we had been defeated and we had no Scottish MPs. The Conservatives in the UK Parliament recognised that and took guidance from members who had previously been elected in Scotland. The House of Lords took a slightly different attitude. I understand that considerable argument was put up, and dangers pointed out, with respect to the incorporation of the convention. That apart, the fact is that this bill will be crammed through the Justice and Home Affairs Committee next week and returned to the chamber the following week for stage 3. I presume that, once again, it will be approved. That is no way to do business.

Yesterday, Wendy Alexander boasted of the number of bills—11 in total—that have been passed through the Parliament in its first year. Those bills have been dealt with under what could be described as a philosophy of "Never mind the quality, feel the width", necessitated by the blinkered actions of those responsible, to an extent, for the Scotland Act 1998. They were well warned of the effects that incorporation of ECHR would have on our legal system, but they pressed ahead, with no regard for expert opinion, in a way that is typical of the arrogant and dogmatic approach of the Government that manages the affairs of the United Kingdom and of Scotland.

The experts to whom I referred are eminent judges such as Lord McCluskey, sheriffs and the Law Society of Scotland. The minister referred to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee's report, and I urge him to take on board the comments made by the sheriffs and the judges. Part of the evidence for that report was compiled before the publication of the bill that is before us today. It seems to me that that approach was totally the wrong way round. I would have expected the bill to be published and presented to the committee, following which evidence would have been taken. Roseanna Cunningham explained some of the reasoning behind the approach that was taken and talked about the suspension of standing orders. I repeat: that is no way to do business.

Irrespective of those difficulties, Conservative members will commit to doing all that we can to ease the procedural passage of the bill. We will attempt to ensure proper scrutiny of the detail of the bill and we will lodge amendments within the next 24 hours, to meet the crazy time scale and the 5.30 pm deadline for the lodging of amendments.

We recognise the need for speed, and were particularly concerned by the words of Sheriff Scott, which are noted in the committee's report. He commented that justice is now provided in sheriff courts on a priority basis, and described a state of near crisis in the courts. Sheriff Wilkinson stated that the sheriffdom of Tayside, Central and Fife is in crisis. The target times within which summary cases are to be dealt with have risen from eight to 12 to 21 weeks in Edinburgh. In the words of Sheriff Scott,

"the figure creeps up all the time".—[Official Report, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, 30 May 2000; c 1330.]

We register concern that none of the witnesses interviewed by the committee had been part of a consultation process in the lead-up to the production of the bill. Several witnesses informed the committee that, in their view, the bill as currently drafted will fall foul of the ECHR—despite its purpose being to overcome possible contraventions of the convention. Roseanna Cunningham addressed that issue earlier.

That issue alone heaps a considerable amount of responsibility on those who will participate in stage 2 of the bill and in the hasty return of the bill to the chamber, when every member of the Scottish Parliament should participate in the debate. We must not create an act in this essential legislative area that fails the ECHR test because, by so doing, we will undermine further the Scottish justice system.

Our amendments to part 1 of the bill will address bail in particular. We will seek to ensure that the bail laws are not weakened. I recognise that there are difficulties, given the effects of the ECHR, but we will ensure that our amendments will strengthen bail laws, where possible, and we will probe the implications of the detail of the bill. We welcome the minister's earlier comments on police reports and on information for victims and witnesses, but will the bill refer to those issues? I suspect not. I suspect that they will form part of guidelines to be produced subsequently. Perhaps the Deputy Minister for Justice will respond to that point.

We regret the shambles over the temporary sheriffs. We will seek to ensure that, in part 2, chapter 1, section 6, the introduction of new section 11C to the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1971 does not induce the failure that Sheriff Wilkinson foresaw.

It is important to ensure that the Executive stands back both from the appointment of part-time sheriffs and from determining whether part-time sheriffs continue to serve. Once again, we welcome the words that the minister has come up with today. We will have amendments that will address those issues. No doubt the minister's amendments will be well thought out and will possibly negate any that we will be able to produce. Nevertheless, we will lodge amendments to ensure that recognition is given to those points.

Some concerns, with which we identify, have been expressed about periods of appointment for part-time sheriffs. We also express concern about the hours that a part-time sheriff is expected to serve: not the minimum hours, but there is a need for a maximum level to be placed on part-time sheriffs.

Comments have already been made on part 2, chapter 2, on justices of the peace. To some degree, we go along with Roseanna Cunningham's comments. Nobody appears to have mentioned part 3 to any degree, but the comments in general are welcome. Roseanna made a point about clerks in district courts for which she will find cross-party support. I trust that the minister will take that on board. I suspect that the haste with which this bill has been put together has caused the omission of the district court clerks' position.

We have just under an hour for general debate and only nine speakers, so speeches can be relatively generous by normal standards.

Oh no, please.

This bill in three parts deals with subjects that are almost separate from one another. The common thread is to make certain that procedures, laws and appointments are compatible with the European convention on human rights.

To respond to Phil Gallie's point: the majority of the population welcomes the introduction of human rights across Europe—that is the basic thing that we have signed up to and we must not lose sight of that. There is a sense of urgency, because we must ensure compliance with the ECHR by 2 October this year. It is crucial that, in the rush, we get the legislation right, or we will be back here in the chamber re-proofing it in the future.

Bail conditions have been controversial in some respects and some concerns have been raised that the new provisions may lead to an increase in accused persons getting out of custody on bail. It is right to examine the impact of the new provisions and deal with any that we can foresee. The principle behind the change, however, is the presumption of innocence and the need for guilt to be proved in a court of law. The courts should deprive a person of their liberty carefully, with justification and in a consistent manner.

Part 1 of the bill amends the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 and places a duty on a sheriff automatically to consider whether bail should be granted on the first appearance of every accused person. That removes bail restrictions for certain serious offences. The amendment is the result of the ECHR decisions which state:

"The right of liberty and the right to release pending trial are not dependent on application by accused persons—this must be done promptly."

I understand why that worries some people, but their minds will be put at rest when they look at the way in which it will be implemented.

No person accused of serious crimes will automatically be released on bail. Professor Gane of Aberdeen University, in giving evidence to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, had a number of useful things to say on the subject. At present the law makes it more difficult for individuals who are held in custody and charged with serious offences to get access to bail. Those differences will be removed.

I now want to address how bail will be granted. When accused persons appear before a sheriff or judge, bail will automatically be considered. The judge will have to consider the grounds for refusing bail, and that has to be done on common law. Reasons that are now ruled out include the gravity of the offence and the strength of the case. ECHR-related cases rule such reasons out.

The Scottish courts are already using criteria that are compatible with the ECHR, which include the risk of absconding, the likelihood of the individual interfering with a witness, the risk of the accused offending while released from custody and the interests of the prosecutor in pursuing the investigation against the accused. Criteria that may be applied, but which are less familiar, include the protection of public order or, in certain cases, the need to protect the accused.

I believe that, in practice, the prosecution will be bound to make the case for refusal of bail on the criteria that I have just outlined. If the prosecution has made its case in the first place, it can achieve the same results as under the current system. However, the defence cannot be complacent and expect a judge to grant bail just because it is requested.

I will now address the concerns of Victim Support Scotland and Scottish Women's Aid. I very much welcome the comments made by the Minister for Justice this afternoon, which are extremely useful, and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee raised the same theme that the minister did on a number of other issues.

We must ensure that we have a standard quality system, properly informing victims that an accused person has been released on bail. Although the committee did not take evidence from Scottish Women's Aid, its members would also point out cases of domestic abuse or cases in which a victim may be at risk. It is crucially important that a victim is properly and systematically notified. More work remains to be done in support of victims. This is a live issue, clearly established as part of the Executive's programme.

As to whether the detail of bail criteria should be stated in the bill, I do not believe that it is required, as Professor Gane suggested. Guidance has already been issued to sheriffs and judges, and I do not think that we need do any more than that.

I welcome the statement that there will be an increase in the size of the inner house of the High Court of Justiciary. I am on record, in previous speeches in the chamber, on the issue of judicial appointments, saying that I hoped that we would aim to make the judicial benches more representative of the population at large. I sincerely hope that the minister will use this opportunity to encourage appointments along those lines.

The Starrs and Chalmers judgment ruled out the use of temporary sheriffs because it does not comply with the need to have independent and impartial tribunals. We will abolish the position of temporary sheriffs, and I am sure that many people agree that the system has been abused over the years.

In hearing evidence from the Sheriffs Association, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee came to the conclusion that the new provisions were not compliant either. There seems to be something in the evidence given by Sheriff Wilkinson and the other Sheriffs Association representatives. They were concerned about the differences between part-time and full-time sheriffs. We should examine that issue properly in the light of what has been said. Individuals coming before a court which will determine their innocence or guilt must be sure in the knowledge that, whether they come before a part-time or full-time sheriff, that sheriff is charged with administering justice, and the outcome is just the same.

The issue of district courts has been covered extensively by other speakers. It is quite a controversial area, and we must take action on it.

The current law says very little about the appointment of justices of the peace by Scottish ministers—it is therefore right that we should clearly set out appointment procedure in an act of the Scottish Parliament. In a report, the Subordinate Legislation Committee discovered that appointments had been set out in a small red book marked "in confidence".

Some people take the view that we should examine more closely the implications of losing the vast experience of the councillor justices of the peace who are now to become signing justices.

Phyllis Hands of the District Courts Association, in giving her evidence, said:

"There are many other justices of the peace who sit on the bench and who are linked to the council in other ways, either by employment or through voluntary organisations that are funded by the council."—[Official Report, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, 22 May 2000; c 1303.]

She may have been referring to the judgment that Roseanna Cunningham mentioned in her speech.

My view is that there is a less direct connection in the relationship between elected councillors and the district courts. It is, however, worth noting that the Justice and Home Affairs Committee felt that the Executive has not yet made a convincing case that there was a breach of the ECHR. We must be absolutely sure that there has been a breach and we must satisfy ourselves that more needs to be done.

In concluding, I believe that all those concerns can be overcome. The approach that all parties in the chamber have taken this afternoon demonstrates that we can work sensibly through some of the areas that we are concerned about. With a bit of hard work we can, in due course, achieve what is needed. I welcome the bill.

I should start by declaring a potential interest in that if I was, by any mischance, to cease to be a member of the Parliament, in theory I would be eligible for appointment as a sheriff.

Re-elect him.

I am bound to reflect that my becoming a sheriff is about as likely as the Prime Minister being made patron of the women's institute.

What we are seeing today is the Government following the Westminster Government and reaping what has been sown over a period of 30 years. As has been pointed out, the position of temporary sheriff was introduced to deal with the death or illness of a permanent sheriff, annual vacations or a declinature of jurisdiction. There has been a gradual growth in the use of temporary sheriffs to the point where there are 134 of them. That is because temporary sheriffs were not entitled to pensions and did not get the same amount of remuneration. We had temps because governments tried to get justice on the peace—on the cheap rather. [Laughter.] I see that members are all still awake.

This is not so much a case of virtue being rewarded as it is of parsimony being punished. The matter is serious. I have spent many happy hours in sheriff courts before various sheriffs and I can say that temps are not the real thing. Members might consider appearing in the chamber a nerve-racking experience, but anyone who has not appeared before Sheriff David Smith does not know that they are alive.

I hope that section 11A will achieve its intended aims. There should be regulations, not discretionary powers. The regulations must deal with unfairness to solicitors from places such as Glasgow, who have been excluded from the bench. They must deal with unfairness to people from ethnic minorities, who are hardly represented on the bench. The regulations must also deal with unfairness to female solicitors. That sort of unfairness has been going on for decades. We should deal with it now.

The main point that I want to address is on chapter 2. I participated in the deliberations on the matter in the Subordinate Legislation Committee. I say to the minister that it seems to me that chapter 2 is lazy and callous. The Executive is removing at a stroke 88 justices of the peace because they are councillors. As the civil servants who appeared before the Subordinate Legislation Committee admitted, there are many other solutions available, but the Executive has chosen the easy option. They will wield the axe and get rid of the lot of them, just in case there is a distant prospect that there might be—in the perception of an unspecified person—a possible risk of non-compliance with the ECHR.

The committee considered the bill in some technical detail. The civil servant's first response to being asked why the provision in chapter 2 was necessary was:

"Our concern is with the financial link local authorities have with district courts".

When asked what the financial link was, another civil servant said:

"A reasonable person might reasonably perceive a possibility of bias."—[Official Report, Subordinate Legislation Committee, 6 June 2000; c 228 and 230.]

Why? It is because JPs impose fines and fines go to local authorities. According to that civil servant, JPs might benefit. JPs do not benefit, however. The councils benefit from fines—JPs do not get a penny whether they impose a fine of £50 or £100. It makes no difference to them. One might as well say that any member of a community benefits if a fine is set at £100 rather than £50, and that no member of the community can, therefore, be a JP, because they might benefit if the council gets another 50 quid.

I ask members—

Will the member give way?

In a second. I was about to ask myself a rhetorical question of the sort with which Gordon Jackson is familiar.

Is it really the case that a reasonable person will say that a JP, usually of many years' experience, will be influenced in the way described? I think not. That is a flawed argument.

The Subordinate Legislation Committee did not pursue this issue in a political way. Objections were made by other members, some of whom are in the chamber. Jettisoning 88 respected, respectable and long-serving judges who have done a difficult and thankless job in our courts is an act of callousness and laziness. I hope that the Executive will reconsider that.

I was about to sit down, but if Gordon Jackson really wants to ask me a question, I am happy to respond.

I do want to ask the member a question. There is a principle that judges should not be engaged in day-to-day politics. It applies to sheriffs and to judges, and I think that Fergus Ewing would accept it. Why should it not apply to these judges? They are now making more important decisions than they have ever made. The cases that come before district courts now are more serious than those that came before them 30 or 40 years ago. Why should the principle to which I have referred not apply to part-time sheriffs in the same way as it applies to every other judge?

I accept that that argument can be made. However, under the existing system no successful challenge has been made to JPs on those grounds. I remind Gordon Jackson of the arguments that were put previously: namely, that one way of dealing with the problem, without axing 88 JPs, would be to require them to decline any case in which the local authority was directly involved. Surely that would be sufficient to protect those 88 JPs against any threat of non-compliance with the ECHR.

Unusually, I intend to echo much of what Fergus Ewing has said. I will also deal with two points that Gordon Jackson made.

First, when the Subordinate Legislation Committee raised the issue of political appointments with one of the civil servants, she answered clearly:

"Our concern is not with the fact that councillors are political appointees. Our concern is with the financial link local authorities have with district courts".—[Official Report, Subordinate Legislation Committee, 6 June 2000; c 228.]

Secondly, surely it would be more appropriate to discuss the possible political issues surrounding justices within the context of the review of district courts that the minister has announced. The measure as set out in the bill is putting the cart before the horse. The Executive has announced its review, and I understand that at the moment councillor justices are not serving on the bench in Scotland. Why do we not await the outcome of the review, rather than rushing ahead with this measure?

Justices in rural areas are in a very different position from their counterparts elsewhere. That is why councillors are well equipped to serve in those areas and why many of our rural councils use councillors as JPs. A JP in a rural area is not an anonymous person in the way that JPs in urban communities often are. JPs in small towns and country areas have a high profile. One of the biggest differences between district courts in country areas and district courts in city areas is that every case that is heard at Annan district court, Lockerbie district court and district courts in small towns across Scotland is reported in detail in the local paper and the justices are named. It is not a case of people saying, "I want to do my bit for the community, but I want to remain anonymous". If someone puts themselves forward as a justice in a rural community, they will have a profile in that community. It requires a special sort of person to accept that, and councillors have done so.

My other point, having spoken with Dumfries and Galloway Council and South Lanarkshire Council, is that people are not queuing up to be justices, particularly in our more rural communities; therefore, to summarily get rid of the 88 justices is ill conceived.

Fergus Ewing has gone over the evidence that we heard in the Subordinate Legislation Committee. I will not restate it, because I am sure that members will have read the Official Report of the committee meeting on 6 June, which was a record meeting for us, lasting more than the standard six minutes. At that meeting, on every occasion on which those who were giving evidence were challenged, they made it clear that there was no political issue, and that there was currently no suggestion that the appointment procedure was incompatible with the ECHR.

The problem was the financial link with fines. Without wanting to appear unduly arrogant, I will quote from myself. I said, in relation to the point about councillors imposing higher fines so that the council could get some extra cash:

"Why would a well-intentioned citizen"—

who was not a councillor—

"who is a justice of the peace not think that too and say, ‘What about a few extra quid for the local council?'"—[Official Report, Subordinate Legislation Committee, 6 June 2000; c 230.]

and impose a higher fine.

The point that Fergus Ewing made is an apt one. If we go down this line, we will end up with nobody being capable of being a justice. The Scottish Executive would do the public, and particularly the public in rural Scotland, a lot more good if it was willing to hold the line on this issue and say, "Yes, we have a group of experienced people here who are doing a good job, with whom generally there has been no suggestion of a lack of impartiality, and who are providing a local justice service." That is one view to which all members would subscribe; people should be entitled to have justice locally, without travelling 50 or 100 miles for their opportunity to appear in court. The Executive would be defending the corner of justices against some of the more preposterous arguments that might be put forward to link justices with the ECHR.

I ask the minister to step back from this issue. He has said that he will have a review. He should look at these issues in the context of the review, but he should not rule out councillors from being justices at this time. It is too soon, and it is a great disservice to those people who have put a lot of effort into serving their communities as both councillors and justices.

This is quite a good bill, or at least it will be on Tuesday by the time it has been amended somewhat. I welcome it, partly because we are doing something to comply with ECHR. We must always do that, but we must not get too hung up about it. We also do things because they are right. By and large, what we are doing in this bill is quite good.

On the issue of bail, the fact that we need to change our bail regulations to comply with the ECHR is undoubtedly necessary. The present position that bail cannot be obtained in certain situations would never be ECHR compliant, and I do not think that anyone is arguing against that.

The second issue that I wish to address—although no one has raised it, and I am not suggesting that Phil Gallie has—is that we should avoid any suggestion that making these changes will somehow flood the streets with people who are a danger to the public. That view has no substance whatsoever. I say that because that fear was mentioned to us on the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, and it is a fear that we all understand and want to deal with. But the reality is that people who at present should not be out will not, under these provisions, be any more likely to get out.

The reason we are making the change is that in the past we had an odd situation. We had people who, on any view, should not have been in custody, but because of the narrowness of the law, it took a long while and very tortuous procedures to get them out.

I give two examples. I remember a 13-year-old who had a developed age of about eight—he was tiny. Because we were inquiring into something that might turn out to be serious, he had to be taken away by two police officers. Everyone thought, "This is quite ridiculous", but there was nothing we could do about it.

I remember a woman who had been a victim of domestic violence, abused by her partner, for many years. There was a tragedy, and the partner died at her hand. She was eventually released back into the community. However, she could not get bail and was sitting in Cornton Vale. She was 100 per cent blind, but the jail had no facilities for her. A whole family support group was willing to look after her, but although everyone thought that we should remove her from the jail cell, back into that family, we could not do it.

Those were straitjackets on the system. What the minister is trying to do with the bail legislation is not only to make the system compliant but to make it that bit more flexible. That is a good thing.

Other issues, such as part-time sheriffs, are perhaps even more contentious. Temporary sheriffs have disappeared—I have said before in the chamber that I did not mourn their passing. Whether or not they were ECHR compliant, they were not, in some ways, a good thing. I think I can see Fergus Ewing nodding at that. However, ending temporary sheriffs created a problem, which needed to be solved. On balance, this is quite a good way of solving it.

Gordon Jackson said at the beginning that he thought that the bill was good and that it was necessary. Perhaps he is right, in that the measures within the bill are, ultimately, necessary. However, does he agree with Roseanna Cunningham and me that the way in which the bill is being addressed is being forced upon ministers? Many of the measures he is talking about could have been more thoughtfully addressed in a more reasonable period of time.

As a member of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, I would be the last person to abandon the line that we are over-worked. We are overworked—we have too much to do sometimes. We are doing this quite quickly, but although I do not want to minimise the issues, they are not the most complex; they have a fairly short focus. I accept that Mr Gallie perceives a problem, but I do not. We are not too short of time for proper consideration of the issues. I would be the first to criticise if I thought that we were.

I hope that part-time sheriffs will be an advantage, but I flag up a warning, as others have, about how it happens. I hope that it will be an opportunity to get people into the job who should be there and—dare I say it—not an opportunity for sheriffs who are coming up to retirement to supplement their pension. That is a real danger. We must watch how the system operates.

I am delighted about the changes. The question of how the temporary sheriffs were to be disciplined was not satisfactory, nor was the business of their reappointment. Whether or not they were compliant with the ECHR, they were not good, and the changes that Jim Wallace has announced are to be welcomed. On a slightly churlish note, though, Jim announced them as if he had invented them. However, we in the Justice and Home Affairs Committee made it clear that we would not approve the bill unless the changes were put in place.

On David Mundell's point about the justices, I do not care much one way or the other. It is not the most serious issue in our legislative programme. However, on balance, it is better to get rid of justices who are councillors. A long time ago, we had the system where the bobby gave the wean a clip round the ear and the bailie fined someone a couple of quid in the community. That approach is outdated.

Our judges are not political appointees—that is not the problem—but nor are they involved in day-to-day politics. That is not to say that councillor justices did not do a great job—some of them did. I had to say that, or Bill Aitken would never buy another round. That is not the issue. It is time that the situation was changed. I welcome the legislation. We will get it through quite quickly next week, because most things have been agreed. Overall, it is a good piece of legislation.

I begin by declaring an interest in the bill, not because, in common with Fergus Ewing, I have little chance of being elevated to the bench, or because I will require bail in future—at least, I hope not—but because of my association with Ross Harper and Murphy and my membership of the Law Society of Scotland and the Scottish Law Agents Society.

As a lawyer, I find it extraordinary how fast the law is changing, and with it the familiar landmarks that some of us knew in our youth. I was once a procurator fiscal depute in Dumbarton, and later a defence lawyer. In those days, it was accepted without question that people accused of murder did not get bail; the fiscal could block bail on petition cases for seven days. It had been that way for a long time and nobody really questioned how it fitted in with the presumption of innocence, far less with concepts of human rights.

In my days as a defence solicitor, I appeared before a justice, who was not a councillor justice but one appointed the other way. She was given what was clearly unpalatable advice by the clerk that she must find the defendant not guilty because of lack of evidence. She said, obviously with some reluctance, "I am told I've got to find you not guilty, but you're admonished." There was, perhaps, a certain reluctance on the part of justices to do as they were told by their legally qualified assistants.

The pertinent point is not the technical issue of whether bail provisions are ECHR compliant. We should be concerned with the spirit of the ECHR, which provides a framework for our consideration of these issues. We should be making changes not to make the law ECHR compliant, but because it is the right thing to do if our law is to be adequate, modern, up to date and the sort of thing that we want to emanate from the Scottish Parliament. Although it may be a nuisance to the Executive and even to the convener and members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, it is important that we stick to the spirit of the ECHR as well as to the letter. The suggestions made by the minister today are extremely welcome, and take us a considerable way forward.

I associate myself, to a degree at least, with the comments of those who have expressed concerns about the timetable for the bill. Gordon Jackson is right to say that the issues raised are in relatively short focus. Having said that, I do not consider it acceptable that only a day is allowed between stage 1 and stage 2 for amendments to be lodged. A longer period than that should be allowed. That is not routine in this Parliament, but it is a feature of this bill's progress.

The bill is an important bill that represents one more step in an important programme of modernising and liberalising Scots law. That was, after all, one of the great causes for which the Parliament was established, and we should recognise that.

I shall make a couple of detailed points that have not come up so far. The first relates to section 6, which inserts new section 11A into the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1971. Proposed subsection (8) of that new section, which relates to the pay of part-time sheriffs, states blandly:

"The Scottish Ministers shall pay to part-time sheriffs such remuneration and allowances as they determine."

I have slight qualms about that. I am not entirely certain how the pay of sheriffs is determined, but I think that there ought to be some degree of separation between the ministry on the one hand and the payment of sheriffs—even part-time sheriffs—on the other. An independent form of remuneration fixing, which will probably exist, ought to be inserted into the bill.

My second point concerns local authority prosecutions, which are dealt with in section 10 of the bill. It may be that local authority prosecutions should no longer exist, as there are a number of technical difficulties with them. At the same time, those of us who have been councillors recognise that there have been long-standing irritations over the years about the difficulties of getting the procurator fiscal's office to prosecute on what are undoubtedly seen as minor offences by the fiscal's office, but on which the council, with its wider policy remit covering multiple occupancy, education and so on, may take a rather different stance.

If there is to be an abolition of the right of prosecution by local authorities, it must be accompanied by a close examination of how the fiscal service operates in this role. More resources must be put into the situation, perhaps a separate department in the fiscal service in larger sheriff courts for dealing with those matters, closer liaison with the councils on the way in which they go forward and the policy that the council must seek. The meetings that there have been over many years between the fiscal department and the councils have not been all that effective in establishing long-term changes in the way in which this takes place. I ask that the department of justice examine this aspect as a matter of urgency, in association with this change.

My final point is on ECHR impact assessment. I know that we have the policy memorandum that goes with the bill, but I think that it would be extremely helpful—especially when we are, as yet, lacking a Scottish human rights commission—if it included a detailed human rights assessment impact study by the Executive, not only on this bill but on all bills, which would direct the attention of members to the issues and the way in which the Executive has approached them.

Having said all that, the bill is welcome. It is a considerable part of the law reform process of this Parliament. The bill goes a long way to answer some of the ECHR criticisms and, along with the amendments made by the minister and perhaps taking on board one or two of the comments made by members today, it will be a creditable addition to the legislative format of Scots law. To that degree, I beg to support the motion.

I am full of admiration for all those who served on the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, when I see the amount of work that they have done and detail that they have had to apply their minds to. I congratulate them and the convener of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Roseanna Cunningham, who made such a distinguished contribution.

Like other members, I must declare an interest. I am Fergus Ewing's senior partner. For that, I get no remuneration whatsoever, but my name is on the notepaper, which he likes for some reason, and for that privilege I pay enormous sums of money to the Law Society of Scotland, so that I can be jointly, severally and responsibly liable for any defaults that he and my daughter Annabelle, who is his partner, care to make.

Another interest is that I was secretary and then president of the Glasgow Bar Association. Ross Harper, whom Robert Brown mentioned, was one of our distinguished presidents at one time. We fought on this issue of shrieval appointments and, to some extent, we were successful. Originally, it was young Edinburgh advocates—no harm to Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, who is not just so young as he was when I first instructed him. We used to say, "Let us have no more of those beardless Edinburgh boys on the bench." We were totally devoted to that and we succeeded. The whole system changed for the better, although it may not be good enough yet, as there might not be enough women and ethnic minorities. However, it is definitely a changed system from when the Glasgow Bar Association came into existence.

On part-time sheriffs, I would issue the warning that this will not necessarily meet the challenge of the ECHR, although a lot of what the Deputy First Minister said today has gone a long way towards doing so. I had a note down to complain about the removal and the nature of the tribunal, but that is to be changed.

On reappointment, there is a proposal that that is to be changed to some extent. I could see a flaw in a part-time sheriff looking ahead and thinking, "Will I be reappointed?" It could be argued that that could affect his conduct of cases that he sat on. However, some automatic reappointment would take that away.

I noticed that one of the possible exceptions to automatic reappointment would be the recommendation of the sheriff principal. I think that is what the Deputy First Minister said—I had to write all this down as Mr Wallace read it out. Other exceptions would be if the part-time sheriff was 69 and if he had failed to sit for 50 days during the five-year period, but I think that is bringing us back into the danger zone. After all, look at Lord Cullen's opinion on temporary sheriffs. They did not have security of tenure; they could be removed at will. Now there is no right of appeal, as was mentioned earlier. Those are all worrying aspects.

There is also the question of the convention suggesting that the judiciary should be independent not just in security but in remuneration and pensions. I am not sure that it will be independent in that respect, as I do not think that there is going to be a pension. Again, it seems that we are getting justice on the cheap.

On the question of remuneration, there has been some discussion of solicitors acting as part-time sheriffs, but there is silence about solicitor advocates acting in that capacity, although that is a recognised category that did not exist before. What about advocates acting as part-time sheriffs? They are subject to the discipline of the dean of the Faculty of Advocates. Will they be subject to the dean, the sheriff principal, or both?

New section 11A(6), on the appointment of part-time sheriffs, says that they will be subject to instructions and other provisions that are made by the sheriff principal. Anybody who has been in a busy practice will know that that is a nonsense. It is the sheriff clerks who allocate the cases and call up the need for a sheriff. The sheriff principal does not know about that—I think that my legal colleague Robert Brown is nodding in agreement—and cannot be in control.

On bail, I agree that there should not be a statutory right to bail. I am pleased that people do not have to make an application for bail. How painful it has all been in my memory of cases. Like Pauline McNeill, I do not believe in statutory guidelines as I do not think that they will solve problems. Certainly, that is the view of the Sheriffs Association.

On the issue of exclusions, I agree with Gordon Jackson. The victim has been mentioned. The victim should not have the automatic right to appear—that would be cumbersome and would make the chaos in the courts worse. However, I agree that victims should be informed, in good procedure, of the release on bail of someone who had harmed them.

I will end by saying that we cannot get justice on the cheap. The solution is to accept that we need more sheriffs and to pay them. We should accept that paying sheriffs the proper salary that they attract is the cost of justice. We should not try, as we used to do with the temps, to get justice on the cheap.

I agree that there should be a Scottish human rights commission.

It is a pleasure to follow Winnie Ewing, as she sent me my first case as an advocate, which I remember vividly. The advice that we had at that time was: if the facts are against you, stick to the law; if the law is against you, stick to the facts; and if the law and the facts are against you, give somebody hell. I cannot claim that I practised with Gordon Jackson, but I did with Nicky Fairbairn. The general view of Nicky Fairbairn was that, if one were guilty, one should go to him, but if one were innocent, one should avoid him like the plague.

The overwhelming consideration in the bill on bail is protection of the public. We welcome the bill, subject to reservations. The removal of the statutory bail provisions means that a sheriff has to exercise his or her discretion in accordance with the common law and, from 2 October, with Strasbourg jurisprudence. In practice, the common law would discharge a sheriff from exercising his or her discretion to release persons who are charged with serious sex crimes or crimes of violence and who have previous convictions, in the absence of exceptional circumstances. That is much the same as what Gordon Jackson said.

However, the significant weakness in the bill is the absence of statutory bail criteria. Professor Gane was concerned that the bill did not specify where the burden lay in establishing whether bail should be granted, or which standard should be applied in making the decision. The Scottish Rape Crisis Network asked for statutory guidelines. I know that the minister is not enthusiastic about that, but an argument for having such guidelines is that it would be much more likely that they would be applied consistently throughout the country.

There is also the issue of giving reasons for bail decisions, which would have two advantages. First, it would help those who were in the court to understand clearly and appreciate the reasons. Secondly, it would be of great assistance to victims. This is a sensitive point, but it is obvious that victims like to be informed of when their assailant will come out of prison. On one occasion, I represented a woman who had been severely disabled for the rest of her life in a physical attack. She was convinced that if she had known when her assailant was coming out of prison, she would have been able to take measures to protect herself.

In bail cases, it is important to keep the victim fully in the picture. Victim Support Scotland wanted the bill to include a requirement to inform victims about the bail process and the outcome of applications, including any conditions that had been attached to the granting of bail. That would provide protection to the public and should not be disregarded lightly. I hope that that will be addressed during the next stages of the bill.

The bill states that sheriffs can be removed on grounds of

"inability, neglect of duty or misbehaviour."

I very much hope that nobody would be appointed as a sheriff in the first place if they suffered from inability. However, if sheriffs are to be subject to dismissal, it seems right that they should have a right to appeal. I understand that the Sheriffs Association would accept a mechanism that

"left the removal of part-time sheriffs essentially in judicial hands".

The Law Society of Scotland has made it clear that it is of the view that the same procedure should be adopted for the removal of part-time sheriffs as for the removal of full-time sheriffs, to ensure "uniformity of procedure". It also feels that there is a case for part-time sheriffs having a right of appeal.

Another issue to be considered is the fact that the sheriffs do not have permanent contracts. There is a case for them having such contracts. It has been alleged that the reason that they do not have them is that the Administration does not want to fork out for their pensions. That is not sufficient reason. Part-time sheriffs should be treated better than that. Sheriffs have taken a substantial blow, with more than 100 temporary sheriffs being made to give up. As the position is now being regularised, there is a case for ensuring that sheriffs are given permanent part-time contracts, even if that involves pensions.

I hope that the minister will consider those matters sympathetically. The bill is a step in the right direction. We welcome it, but we think that some amendments are necessary to take into account the needs of the practitioners at the sharp end of the profession.

I start by congratulating the Justice and Home Affairs Committee on producing another superb report, despite the difficulties under which it laboured. The report is another example of the massive superiority of this Parliament over Westminster in stage 1 consideration of bills. A large number of people have already given evidence on the record, and the Executive has made changes as a result of that evidence and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee's report. Stage 1 in committee also allows people like me, who are not members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, to gain some knowledge of the issue before the stage 1 debate.

The bill raises two general issues, which are similar to the issues that have come up in relation to the cross-examination of rape victims. The first is the European convention on human rights, which in many ways drives the bill. I want to make it clear that I absolutely welcome the convention and its incorporation into British law. It is the misuse of the convention that I have objected to in relation to cross-examination.

The other issue is the relationship between politicians and the legal system. With the cross-examination issue, we started to see many lawyers beginning to try to frighten off politicians from their territory. We have to be absolutely clear that we have an important role to play in relation to criminal procedures—we must do more in that direction. However, there should be a strong distinction when it comes to individual cases. Of course, many of the changes in the bill aim to separate the conflict of interest that may arise if politicians are too directly involved in individual legal cases.

I welcome the changes that are to be introduced in relation to part-time sheriffs; the strict separation was not enforced in the original bill. There may still be issues surrounding the action for the removal of a part-time sheriff being initiated by ministers and the right of appeal in such cases.

There are related but different issues of councillors who are justices of the peace. I do not have a view on that in relation to the European convention on human rights, but I tend to agree with the unease of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee about the blurring of the boundary between the judicial and the political.

Bail, however, is a completely different matter. Some members thought that the debate about statutory guidelines ended yesterday, but I note that we have a formidable coalition of Professor Gane, the Rape Crisis Network, Victim Support Scotland and now Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, arguing in favour of statutory bail guidelines. I must say that I agree and would join that coalition. As Professor Gane said to the committee, guidelines are a legislative matter that should not be conceded to the judiciary. If the Executive does not agree with that point, it must show how it will ensure consistency in the granting of bail.

I welcome Jim Wallace's announcement on the right of victims to be informed when an accused has been given bail, although I wonder why that has not been put in legislation. Clearly, there are many related issues, such as the conditions that are attached to bail being clearly explained to the victim and to the accused. I welcome the Justice and Home Affairs Committee's suggestion that such conditions could be read out in court. There are also many enforcement issues to consider, although they are not appropriate to the bill.

My final point relates to victims giving information in relation to their safety and well-being prior to any bail consideration. Jim Wallace suggested that there would be some action in that respect. Perhaps Angus MacKay can clarify that in his closing statement. That was the main point that was made in Victim Support Scotland's evidence. I note that in talking about that evidence, the Justice and Home Affairs Committee referred to a "victim impact statement". However, I do not think that that was what Victim Support Scotland had in mind. Victim impact statements have American connotations and the victim statement would not give views on bail or sentences, but would simply give information about worries that the victim may have about the accused. I notice that there has already been a judgment in the European Court against the UK Government—Osman v United Kingdom—because the UK authorities failed to ask a victim about their worries concerning the accused.

I welcome the bill and the work of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee in making it a better bill. Many of us will keep our eyes on the bail issue in particular to ensure that the rights of victims are strengthened.

I echo the comments of my colleague Roseanna Cunningham: it is important that the committee structure be taken into account, because it is one of the strengths of the Scottish Parliament. We should be able to knock about ideas, take evidence and consider matters in a consensual forum. The democratic process is endangered if we try to push matters too quickly—the checks and balances break down.

The Subordinate Legislation Committee had to deal with the bill apace. I welcomed the fact that we took oral evidence. One of the things that I enjoyed in my 20-year experience of being a solicitor was cross-examination, and having witnesses in the Subordinate Legislation Committee added to that enjoyment.

The three aspects of the bill should be considered separately. First, in respect of bail, my colleague Winnie Ewing touched on the question of process. The anomaly that existed, whereby someone who was already in custody could not receive bail on another matter, has been addressed. That situation was rather perverse. We should realise and appreciate that bail is a question of rights and obligations. It should be a citizen's right if he faces an allegation; similarly, if trust is put in that citizen by the sheriff, the citizen is obliged to abide by those criteria. If someone is in custody on another matter, a sheriff should not be precluded from deciding on bail because an obligation has been put on a person to abide by matters, whether or not he is subsequently released.

There should be guidelines for sheriffs, but it is important that the decision should remain at the sheriff's discretion. During 20 years in the law, I began to realise more and more that sheriffs had a master of their brief, knew where they were coming from and, in the main, considered matters sensibly and rationally. As a result, that element of discretion should remain with them.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton and Malcolm Chisholm raised points about the second aspect—the treatment of victims. It is not appropriate to put a victim's statement to the sheriff; that matter is best dealt with through the office of the procurator fiscal. However, we must recognise that the system should be changed, and I hope that the minister will address that.

It is clear that there is intimidation in Scotland. For 20 years, I have practised within the jurisdiction of the city of Edinburgh and elsewhere, and I know that victims are intimidated. I once represented a woman who had allegedly been raped. She met the perpetrator, who lived in the flat opposite and had been released on bail without her knowledge. People face intimidation in whole areas of our country. An example of the intimidation that is faced by witnesses is that when we enter Edinburgh sheriff court on Chambers Street, we go through a metal detector as in an airport. We have to take cognisance of that situation and, moreover, realise that mental as well as physical intimidation is involved when witnesses meet accused people on the street.

As for sheriffs, the Executive amendments might address some problems. Although I will reserve my judgment, the Deputy First Minister's opening speech addressed many of the points that I would have raised. However, the principal point about sheriffs is that a sheriff is a sheriff. Part-time sheriffs should be treated exactly the same as full-time sheriffs. Although there might be differences in wages or pension entitlements, that should not take away from the fact that a person remains a sheriff, and how they are appointed and arraigned should remain the same. That applies in most other jobs, whether full-time or part-time, and should certainly apply to the important position within our democratic process of a sheriff. I regret that we are viewing temporary sheriffs differently from permanent sheriffs.

On the issue of justices, it was made clear during an evidence session at the Subordinate Legislation Committee that it is important to examine the whole nature, ambit and remit of the district courts. Having practised in some of those courts, I feel that some of them should be physically done away with, because they are not acceptable in the 21st century and, in many cases, were not acceptable in the latter part of the 20th century. Of course we must investigate that issue, just as we must take into account the fact that there have been demographic and geographic boundary changes in Scotland. Courts are located in places where the population no longer exists to the same extent and, as a result, we need to change the district court structure.

The real problem that was flagged up at the Subordinate Legislation Committee was that, because there did not appear to be an immediate crisis with ECHR compatibility, we did not need to deal with the situation now. As a result, I do not see why we are rushing ahead with the justices issue. I am open minded about the running of the courts and about questions such as who should preside in those courts, how they should be clerked, where the funds should go and where the buildings should be located. Depending on the priorities of the minister and his colleagues, the Parliament needs to consider those important questions over the next few years. Unless there is an immediately urgent situation—which was not suggested at the Subordinate Legislation Committee—we should not go ahead piecemeal. Let us examine the panoply of aspects of district courts and their place in our judicial system in due course, not rush to fix something where there ain't a problem at the moment.

It is fair to say that the timetabling of this bill has been the most difficult so far. In the light of that—and the rather late lodging of an eight-page amendment to the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Bill—I raise a mild back-bench protest that the principles of the consultative steering group are in danger of being breached. However, I recognise the importance of the bill and the fact that it has to be put on the statute book.

I accept that the changes to bail exclusions are both necessary and inevitable. Copious evidence was given to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee on that score. I agree that the introduction of statutory criteria for bail is unrealistic. It might be possible to introduce such criteria in years to come, but the evidence persuaded me that, because we are in a period of change, it would be impractical at present.

I welcome the acting First Minister's statements about victim notification. It is important that we get that right. Some of the most moving testimony that the Justice and Home Affairs Committee heard has been from victims' representatives. Improvements in that area will be welcome.

I welcome the minister's proposals to amend the bill to ensure that we can avoid the challenges to the part-time sheriffs that the committee predicted might be made. We will have to review the amendments with care, but the minister's statement gives grounds for optimism.

Phil Gallie rightly alluded to problems in sheriff courts. The waiting times that were published by the Scottish Parliament's information centre show the effect coming through of the recent full-time appointments. There are significant exceptions among the sheriff courts and the minister should consider them in detail. The waiting times in the sheriff courts in Alloa, Cupar, Dundee, Kirkcaldy, Stirling and Perth are out of line with a number of the other courts. In Perth, the delays for criminal cases are consistently longer than those for civil cases. At the outset, however, it was clearly determined that that should not happen. Why is Perth an exception?

I was interested in Robert Brown's comments on local authority prosecutions and echo his view that, if the system is to be replaced, there must be changes to ensure that that business is dealt with effectively. There should be amendments on that score at a later stage. Like Pauline McNeill, I welcome the proposal to increase the numbers in the inner house.

I was in a minority of one in the Justice and Home Affairs Committee in thinking that the Executive had made a case—not a great case, but some form of a case—on councillor justices. The question is genuinely more one of perception than practice. The perception should dictate what we do in this circumstance.

I think that all judges should be outside the political process. A way of doing that would be to recognise the valuable service of those who are currently engaged in service. I agree with Fergus Ewing's point that many people give up a lot of time. One way of recognising that would be to say that, although there will be no more councillor justices, the current ones can continue to serve until they retire. Perhaps we can examine that issue at stage 2. There are no grounds for saying that the district court system will collapse if the councillor justices are removed. That is clearly not the case, as they make up only about 10 per cent of the justices and replacements have been trained, as the acting First Minister said. Overall, change is necessary and, while it might have been better to deal with the issue along with changes that are proposed during the review, on balance, I feel that it is better to tackle the issue now.

The bill is to be welcomed. It is necessary, and I have no hesitation in commending its principles to the chamber on behalf of my party.

It has been a long day, so I will eschew the usual condemnation of the ill-thought-out and hasty incorporation of ECHR regulations into Scots law, but it is not good enough for Jim Wallace to arrive here at the 11th hour to pull his chestnuts out of the fire by proposing last-minute amendments to the bill. Once again, the Executive is introducing legislation that has been ill thought out and badly prepared.

I will now consider the bill and the terms and conditions of those who are released on bail following petitioned appearances at the sheriff courts. All legislation has operated on the assumption that everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. What has been presented today does not change or strengthen that. I do not accept the argument that it will result in those who face serious charges—when there is a danger of their being at liberty, pending trial—walking the streets. We must consider the matter carefully.

I am attracted by the suggestion that there should be statutory grounds for the refusal of bail. It is inevitable that there will be appeals; that is the nature of the beast. Although the law is fairly comprehensive in that respect, it is not at such a stage of sophistication that we can be certain—as we should be in cases in which the human element is important—that matters will be dealt with as we would wish.

I now come to the matter of part-time sheriffs. I was intrigued by, and fully approved, many of the comments that were made by Kenny MacAskill. I was intrigued that someone who has been involved in the legal profession recognises the real difficulty that exists. We must look for a fairly simple solution to a complex problem. That solution is: as someone who is appointed as a part-time sheriff does the same job as a full-time sheriff, they should enjoy the same terms and conditions of employment. If the Parliament seeks to do other than that, we will leave ourselves open to charges of imposing justice on the cheap. I am certain that the Administration does not want that to happen, but there is a real danger that that will be the public perception of what it is trying to do. Sheriffs who are appointed part time should, in the terms and conditions of their contracts, have exactly the same rights as full-time sheriffs.

One significant aspect of the removal of part-time sheriffs is not ECHR compliance, but the involvement of the sheriff principal. The sheriff principal may not be intimately acquainted with the work of sheriffs who are serving on a part-time commission. Most of them will operate on a floating basis, so no sheriff principal will know the strengths and weakness of each of them. That argument could be raised if there is no appeals procedure. That issue should be examined before the bill proceeds to its further stages.

My next point concerns the district courts. I feel very uncomfortable about it—I am sure that he does, too—but I agree with Kenny MacAskill that there is a simple solution to this problem. The Executive has agreed that there will be a full review of how district courts operate. Why, therefore, are we debating the matter just now? Why can we not wait? It is preposterous to suggest that any council-appointed justice of the peace would be influenced in any way by the fact that his local authority would benefit from the imposition of fines.

Gordon Jackson was wrong on one point: there has been no significant change in the number of serious cases that are dealt with in the district courts. In fact, the opposite is true. Such is the Executive's lack of commitment to pursuing law and order that the vast majority of the cases that are heard in the district courts are statutory cases in which, in some instances, the local authority receives 1 per cent of the fine income. When I last sat on the bench, it seemed absolutely incredible that very few common law cases were being prosecuted while the prostitutes and road traffic offenders were being prosecuted relentlessly.

Does Bill Aitken accept that those so-called statutory cases can have tremendous importance for the people involved? Do not trivialise them; to the people involved, they are serious matters.

I do not deny that for a moment. I am merely trying to point out how senseless it is to pretend that finance is an influence on any justice who imposes fines in statutory cases because the amount the local authority takes from those fines is a maximum of 10 per cent. The argument is spurious.

I suggest that the simplest way to deal with this issue—it will come out in the review—is to consider whether the Scottish Courts Administration should take over the running of the district courts. That is a simple, straightforward and expedient solution to the problem, and I commend it to the Executive.

I will preface my remarks by saying that I will not tell any of the very bad jokes that people have been giving me to try to liven up this debate.

Oh, go on.

No—but I will write to Angus later.

I echo Gordon Jackson's statement that the Executive's amendments are to be commended—but be fair to us, minister, they did not come out of the blue; they came because members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee said that they would support the bill at stage 1 only if significant amendments were made, especially in relation to part-time sheriffs. Having seen that red flag, the minister went ahead with the amendments. That is to be welcomed.

If I may say so, the Executive was a bit sloppy with the policy memorandum that accompanied the bill. Despite its claims that there had been consultation, we found out in evidence that witnesses had not been consulted on detailed provisions. It also blithely states that there will be no impact on equal opportunities, human rights or local government. Before the amendments were made, that was not the case. It may be the case now, as we move towards a more transparent procedure for the appointment and removal of part-time sheriffs, but there may still be problems over the failure to give a right of appeal to part-time sheriffs when they are removed from their posts. The Executive should be careful in its statements in policy documents.

Jim Wallace's announcement of amendments is generally to be welcomed. He is to be congratulated on recognising the position he got himself into. The regulations are important. The drafts are to come before Parliament after the summer recess. We need to see them. The Sheriffs Association made it plain that the regulations were very important indeed. As we all know, in law, the devil is in the detail.

The points that Fergus Ewing raised about the nature and class of people who become sheriffs should be considered. I am not one for political correctness or for enforcing balance, but we must concern ourselves with the range of people on the bench.

A lot of people seem to have summed up before me, so I am summing up the summings-up. Members have said that there ought to be an appeal mechanism for part-time sheriffs who have been removed from their posts. That point was raised by Winnie Ewing and James Douglas-Hamilton among others. The fact that there is no such mechanism could rightly be challenged under the ECHR by part-time sheriffs who are removed.

Bill Aitken and Kenny MacAskill asked why part-time sheriffs were not put on the same basis as permanent sheriffs. Like them, I do not understand that. The Justice and Home Affairs Committee heard evidence from Jamie Gilmour, who thought that the reason was simply to avoid having to pay them pensions. Why not put part-time sheriffs on the same basis as permanent sheriffs? We are asking for the same quality of justice from them, so I do not see why there should be two classes of sheriff.

There is also a feeling that people who are taken on as part-time sheriffs might feel that they are on probation. They might not feel that they rank the same as a full-time sheriff. That came out in evidence to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee. The problem may have been partly cured by the fact that part-time sheriffs, subject to certain conditions, can now be reappointed after their five-year period is up.

The Law Society of Scotland has been in touch—I think with everybody—with a recommendation that I do not necessarily subscribe to but which the Executive may want to consider. It is recommending that part-time sheriffs sit for an increased minimum of 40 days and a decreased maximum of 80 days. The minimum is higher so that they have sufficient skills to exercise their authority in a judicial capacity; the maximum is lower so that they are not overused and abused by being on the bench for almost as long as full-time sheriffs.

I would also like to raise the issue of the booking of part-time sheriffs, which I understand is in the power of the Scottish Executive's justice department. It will have to be careful to ensure that part-time sheriffs are used in specific ways—to plug emergency gaps in the system when a sheriff is ill or on holiday or when there is an unusual work load, but not simply to augment the system or to be used as cheap labour, which I think they suspect has been happening.

Fergus Ewing made some good points about the 88 justices with experience in local areas. Particularly—as David Mundell said—in rural areas, local knowledge can be very important to the quality of justice. Also important is that no case has been raised on whether councillor JPs are in breach of the ECHR. Roseanna Cunningham suggested that barring councillor JPs from sitting in their local authority area might be sufficient. She also raised the issue of clerks of the court. When we took evidence, a suggested solution to that possible problem was that their advice should be given to both sides in a case. Bill Aitken raised the issue of the SCA, rather than local authorities, funding district courts. I suspect that that will come up in the review of the district courts.

The SNP accepts that the bill will have little impact on bail. We see no merit in the criteria being incorporated in statute. There was conflicting evidence on victim impact statements at the bail stage—remember, we are dealing with someone who is only accused and is innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. It should always be borne in mind that we are talking about alleged victims and the accused.

Victim Support said it wanted to see some kind of victim impact statement, but the Scottish Rape Crisis Network did not because of the risk of a ranking of such statements. Some people—like me—look cool, calm and collected although they are really in a terrible state and others look as if they are in a state but may be less so, so it can be very difficult to measure from someone's behaviour exactly what the impact is on them.

The minister spoke about discussing strategy with the police. Please get a move on with that. What Kenny MacAskill described—people meeting the accused on the street—really happens. That reduces everyone's confidence in the justice system. We must address that.

Subject to what emerges at stage 2, since we have not seen the proposed amendments, the SNP supports the bill.

I call Angus MacKay to reply.

Six and a half minutes?

In theory you have 10 minutes but it would be helpful if you could manage it in seven.

I will try to contain myself.

This has been a useful and constructive debate, if somewhat bizarrely punctuated at the end by Mr Aitken's reference to the Deputy First Minister's chestnuts, which he singularly failed to roast. However, we are grateful that his contribution was given without the benefit of the tee-shirt he wore yesterday evening—he knows what I mean.

I was pleased to see Fergus Ewing taking the opportunity to continue his intifada against the sheriffs. I am sure that should he become a sheriff, he will be welcomed with a particularly unpleasant initiation ceremony by individuals he never tires of attacking. The Labour party will do all it can to assist in his release back into the community at the next election to the Parliament.

I am glad that there appears to be a general recognition on the part of both the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and the Parliament that the proposals in the bill are necessary to bring aspects of our law into line with the ECHR. I would like to express our thanks, once again, to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee and to the Subordinate Legislation Committee for their willingness to consider the bill at short notice.

The Deputy First Minister made it clear in his opening speech that we listened carefully to the criticisms that the committees made of certain aspects of our proposals and that we will lodge amendments at stage 2 in response to those suggestions. They will provide greater security of tenure for part-time sheriffs and for full-time justices and I hope that they will meet the committees' concerns about whether our proposals go far enough to ensure compliance with the convention. I will be happy to explain our thinking in more detail during stage 2 consideration of the bill.

As the minister who, more often than not, has to appear before the Justice and Home Affairs Committee in relation to legislation, I am not unsympathetic to some of the comments about timetabling. While we regret that it was not possible to introduce the bill earlier, I should make it clear that we had to await the outcome of the Court of Session's judgment on temporary sheriffs in the case of Clancy v Caird, which became available only in April. We finalised the bill as soon as possible after that and published it in draft form at the beginning of May, which allowed three weeks for consideration and comment by interested parties before the bill was introduced on 25 May. While I recognise that that was not satisfactory, I am afraid that, on that occasion, it was unavoidable.

I will now consider some of the more substantive points that have been made during the debate, starting with statutory guidance and the new legal position on bail. As the Deputy First Minister made clear in his opening speech, we considered the options carefully. While I have every respect for Professor Gane's opinion on these matters, like the Sheriffs Association, we decided that legislating now for such guidance as a solution to ECHR incompatibility was neither necessary nor desirable.

I stress that the abolition of bail exclusions does not mean that those who are accused of serious sex or violent offences will have a right to, or even an expectation of, bail. The common law in Scotland contains clear guidelines on the criteria that the courts must apply in deciding whether to grant bail, including considerations of public safety and previous convictions. The courts would not, therefore, release an accused person on bail if he or she presented a serious risk to the safety of the public. Imposing statutory criteria would amount to codifying the common law, yet those criteria would have to be interpreted in the light of convention jurisprudence. I do not see what would be gained by proceeding in that way.

A number of issues were raised about how representative the new, additional sheriffs will be. In particular, Gordon Jackson suggested that we should not appoint retired sheriffs. It was also suggested that we should try to ensure that a wider range of people are represented among sheriffs as a whole. While we will advertise the posts and consider all applications, I do not want to rule out some contribution from experienced sheriffs who have retired early for perfectly legitimate reasons. The Lord President and the sheriffs principal will be consulted before choices are made by the First Minister. In addition, it is important that I stress that we will actively urge applications from individuals who better represent all of Scottish society and who have appropriate experience and abilities. I hope that that will be recognised as an important departure.

On the pay and pensions of part-time sheriffs—I am not sure if you are still able to hear me, Presiding Officer, but I will carry on in any event.

There is a little too much conversation going on. Let us listen to the minister.

We do not accept that the case has been made for part-time sheriffs to receive pensions. They can pick and choose when to work and need only work 20 days a year, if they so choose. If we try to impose conditions, we may find that we will not get the quality of sheriffs that we need. However, I assure members that there will be great interest in these appointments, which will pay £438 a day—I believe that that is rather more than even members of the Parliament enjoy, pro rata. We will pay the same daily rate as is payable to permanent sheriffs.

Jim Wallace gave an undertaking to introduce draft regulations on the procedures for appointing part-time sheriffs as soon as possible after the summer recess. The Justice and Home Affairs Committee accepted that the preparation of regulations should not delay the appointment of the first tranche of part-time sheriffs, which should take place as soon as possible after the bill has been passed.

Given the severe and growing pressures on the sheriff courts, I confirm that we intend to make the first appointments once the bill has obtained royal assent. We hope that that will happen in the autumn. We will introduce regulations for consideration by Parliament when it returns in the autumn.

We are grateful for the general support that there appears to be for the principles of the bill. We will lodge the amendments that we have outlined today at stage 2, when there will be opportunity for further debate. The sole purpose of the bill is to ensure that certain specific aspects of our law are compatible with the ECHR. That is right and proper and the Executive believes that—taking cognisance of the advice of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, which I am always happy to acknowledge—it has got the balance right.