Current status: Answered by Angela Constance on 1 July 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding virtual attendance at criminal court, whether it remains its position that "all stakeholders are of the view that the provisions…work well as currently framed", in light of the comments by the (a) Faculty of Advocates that "valuable court time is regularly lost due to delays in establishing remote links and re-establishing failed remote links", (b) Law Society of Scotland that "the virtual systems that we have had so far have tended to be pretty inflexible" and (c) Scottish Solicitors Bar Association that the pilot scheme for a virtual custody court at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court was "a singular failure".
The provisions of the Criminal Justice Modernisation and Abusive Domestic Behaviour Reviews (Scotland) Bill will make permanent the legislative framework for virtual attendance at criminal courts first introduced over five years ago. This approach has been extensively consulted on including through the Scottish Government’s pre-legislative consultation. The responses of the Faculty of Advocates and the Law Society of Scotland to that consultation supported making these provisions permanent. The Scottish Solicitors Bar Association’s written evidence to the Criminal Justice Committee also supported the use of virtual hearings in specific circumstances such as intermediate diets and preliminary hearings.
As with any aspect of service delivery, the greater use of technology may cause difficulties to arise from time to time and justice agencies and partners engage with each other on those as they would about any matter of operational practice.
By its very nature, that is an ongoing and continuous process. Through repeated use and refinement of the technology over the last five years since the emergency legislation was introduced, practice has improved and there are adequate checks in place to minimise disruption caused by technical difficulties.
The comments by Law Society of Scotland and the Scottish Solicitors Bar Association were both made in the context of feedback around virtual custodies rather than the functioning of virtual provisions generally. Delivery partners have recognised concerns and virtual custodies have been paused pending a review including on the technological challenges experienced to date in implementation. A revised model will be explored through a working group established by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service which includes justice partners such as the Law Society of Scotland.