Chamber and committees

Good morning to the panel. A lot of the issues that I was going to ask about have been covered, and the responses have been full, which I really appreciate. However, there is a particular question that I want to ask, which is about this committee and our scrutiny.

Your opening speeches were really helpful. All of you thanked us for having you back again and for being able to come and speak to us again. You are all familiar faces to the committee, and it is great to see you again. As a member of the Equalities and Human Rights Committee in the previous session, I know you from then. You are used to coming to committees.

How do you think the Government responds to the committee? Obviously, people will watch such sessions and read our reports. Do you think that your input into the committee and the reports that we put forward have any impact on the human rights budgeting process? Do you see a link between what we say in our committee reports, based on your evidence, and actions?

Good morning to the witnesses who are online and to you, Professor Thomas. I was going to ask some questions in a very similar area to those asked by Sharon Dowey. With the convener’s permission, I will still take the opportunity.

I have what I suppose is a simple question for our online guests on judge-only trials. In your academic opinion, do you think that having a single judge to determine such cases, as opposed to a jury, is better?

Following on from what Sharon Dowey said, I have a question for Professor Chalmers. Given your academic expertise, could you tell me how a pilot would look at this issue? How should the pilot be assessed and where should the voices of victims and witnesses be heard in the assessment of the pilot? The reason why I ask is that, when we heard from victims last week, a number of them, quite surprisingly—to me, anyway; I do not know about other committee members—said that they were not in favour of juryless trials, because they felt that it was better that a larger number of people were making the decision.

Okay. Thank you very much.

The bill is about victims and witnesses, and the panellists have said that we should be considering the experience of victims and witnesses. Without putting aside some of the evidence that we heard last week, which Russell Findlay and I mentioned, I think that most of us and the Government have been convinced that the proposal to have a single judge on rape trials is a way to try to make things better. What would victims and witnesses—not the accused, the legal profession or anybody in the Procurator Fiscal Service or anywhere else, but victims and witnesses, or complainers, as you have been referring to them—lose by there not being a jury?

Do you not think that much of what you said there points to the need for the pilot? I think that the pilot is key. If anybody else wants to come in to answer it, I suppose that that is what my question is getting at. We have given the whole of section 6 a good hearing today, but my question is about the pilot.

If we, as a committee and a Parliament, are to pass the bill with that provision intact, what should we do in the pilot? Based on your expertise in the area, what should we look at? Professor Chalmers said that we should look at conviction rates, but, as we heard from Pauline McNeill when she went back to him on that, the Government has been saying that that is not a main aim of the bill. What should the pilot try to assess?

I have a final question for Professor Thomas. First, Professor Thomas, thank you very much for coming up to Scotland, and I am sorry that you feel that your research is coming under so much scrutiny. We are delighted to have you here—the fact that we have invited you indicates that we want to hear more about your research. It is just a sort of scrutiny process, so apologies if it sometimes comes across as a bit harsh. We are making really big decisions here, so we want to hear about your research.

I want to ask you the opposite end of the question that I just asked. I know that your research was in England and Wales. Rather than tell me what the positives would be of having a single judge, can you tell me what you found were the positives, if any, of having a jury make those decisions?

My questions are also around the pilot of juryless trials. I know that the issue has been widely covered, but I want to ask your opinions on what the pilot should look at and assess. We heard in the previous evidence session that such a pilot would be further down the line and that its remit and considerations would need to be given more thought. I know that that is mostly for Government and politicians to look at, but given your expertise in the area, have you thought about what sort of parameters the pilot should look at in answering whether it is making the system better for victims and witnesses and for the accused?

I come back to a point that Russell Findlay made to you earlier, and which I made in the previous session. It is that there was an element of surprise at some of the survivors’ evidence last week on the proposal to have a single judge. The witnesses were more reluctant to approve of that proposal than I had perhaps anticipated. Therefore, I will put to you the question that I put to the academics earlier: what role should be given to victims and witnesses in the assessment of the pilot?

I know that we are coming to the end of our evidence session, so I do not need everybody to answer if they do not want to. I am happy to take nods from anyone who wants to come in.

Thank you. That point was very powerfully made.

Do you think that that could be brought out through the trauma-informed practice that is embedded in the legislation?