Chamber and committees

A major part of the evaluation will look at the experiences of everybody involved—that is, lawyers, victims and the accused—and I am sure that the judiciary will also have their own reflections. It is important that we gather the views and the experiences of everybody involved, and it is imperative that we do so in a rounded way. I hope that that answers your question.

I do not think that is avoiding scrutiny.

With respect, I have outlined lots of detail today, notwithstanding that people seek further information. We have also published a lot of information, I might add. We will always endeavour to be as transparent and timeous as possible in conveying the decisions that we have to make and will make.

There are two issues. I note that Lady Dorrian also said that, if people stick to the timescales, there should not be any undue impact from delays.

She also gave a commentary on the disclosure process, and I note that others shared her views. I confirm that we are looking to use amendments to simplify that area. As envisaged, the process has the Crown Office applying to the court to release information to the victim’s representative. That process could be more efficient and abbreviated. There was some suggestion that, bearing in mind the scope of a section 275 application, which is very clear about the evidence to be shared, the Crown Office should not need to go to court.

Some aspects of the issue are about court processes. I have indicated that we will lodge amendments on and around that, but there are other aspects around ensuring that people and resources are available for people to access independent legal representation.

Jeff Gibbons, is there anything that you would like to add in answer to Mr Findlay’s question?

It was remiss of me not to mention the work of the victims task force, which is very much focused on the quality and nature of communication, whether verbal or written.

Good morning. The Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill places victims and witnesses at the heart of the system. It is informed by the experience of victims, their families and organisations that support them, as well as by independent research, cross-sector groups and individuals with academic, legal and practical expertise.

The committee is well aware of the significant and long-standing concerns about the not proven verdict. You have heard evidence that it is not defined or well understood. It can result in confusion and trauma for victims and their families, and it can lead to stigma for the accused. It is vital that we improve the fairness, clarity and transparency of decision making in the criminal justice system and in criminal cases. The bill seeks to abolish the not proven verdict and to retain the widely understood verdicts of guilty and not guilty.

Reforms to our criminal justice system must command confidence in its integrity and protect balance and fairness. Therefore, the bill proposes to change the jury size from 15 to 12 and to change the majority required for conviction from a simple majority to two thirds. That is a proportionate way to achieve balance.

Violence against women and girls is a worldwide endemic problem. Lady Dorrian has been clear that we need to make seismic structural and statutory changes to how our system responds to sexual violence. Piecemeal change is not enough to achieve the cultural shift that is needed to improve the experiences of victims and give them meaningful access to justice.

The bill proposes an automatic lifelong right of anonymity for victims of sexual and certain other offences to ensure privacy and dignity during their lifetime. That might help to increase confidence in reporting offending behaviour. Placing that right in statute is particularly important in today’s social media age.

The bill also proposes to strengthen the rights of complainers through automatic, publicly funded independent legal representation when requests are made to lead evidence about their sexual history or character. That substantial reform will ensure that complainers have a right to access their own legal representative, who will assist them in ensuring that their voices are heard in that deeply intrusive aspect of sexual offence cases.

The bill seeks to create a new sexual offences court with national jurisdiction to hear solemn-level sexual offending cases. The court will embed specialist approaches to the way in which those cases are managed and complainers are treated, and it will drive reform of practice, process and culture.

Complainers’ experiences will be improved through greater use of pre-recorded evidence, better judicial case management and mandatory trauma-informed training for all who are involved in the work of the court, including lawyers.

Finally, the bill seeks to enable a time-limited pilot of single-judge rape trials. I am aware that there are mixed views on that proposal, which, again, arose from Lady Dorrian’s review. I agree with her that we should explore, in a practical way, the role of juries in delivering justice for victims of rape. Piloting single-judge rape trials for a time-limited period will provide much-needed evidence and will let us have a properly informed debate on how our system deals with those most difficult and challenging cases.

The committee has heard compelling evidence from multiple sources that our Scottish justice system is not working for victims of sexual offences. None of us should be comfortable with that and, as the Lord Advocate observed, it is “simply not good enough”. As parliamentarians, it is our role to address the issues that have been identified. This is our watch, and it is our responsibility. If we do not act, we will pass the problem on to our successors and lose the opportunity to bring about real change for victims who are going through the system now and those who will do so in the future.

No part of the system should be beyond scrutiny. The bill proposes reforms. I repeat the remarks that I made in the chamber last May in a debate about trauma-informed justice:

“if not this, what? If not now, when?”—[Official Report, 9 May 2023; c 68.]

It is time to move forward in the debate. I hope that we can do so together.

I will start with jury size.

Scotland is an outlier in that we have a jury size of 15, while most other comparable jurisdictions have a jury of 12. The independent Scottish jury research, which was one of the largest studies of its kind, was able to look exceptionally closely at the process of deliberation and decision making, because it involved simulated trials with mock jurors. What it found with regard to jury size perhaps speaks to more commonsense arguments. The research involved some factors being held constant so that the impact of various jury sizes on decision making could be examined. In short, it found that having a jury size of 15 provided no particular advantage for the quality of deliberations but, when the group was a little bit smaller, at 12, there was increased participation and fewer people did not participate. That informed the Government’s view that, because there was more participation, there was better deliberation and there were fewer dominant voices.

I am not giving a view for ever and ever, because that would be beyond any of us at the table, but—

We will make sure that we learn all the relevant lessons from history. If the committee requires us to write to you in detail on the exchange that officials had with Ms McNeill, we will do that.