Meeting of the Parliament 21 May 2014
I feel that I am something of an interloper in this debate, as I was not on the Justice Committee through the process, but the subject is fascinating and I would like to make a few points, particularly from the perspective of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee.
As I understand it, the bill talks specifically about a personal injury court, but not about other specialist courts; it merely facilitates them. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee challenged whether that should be subject to consultation. The Government came back robustly and said no, that it feels that the court service should be able to establish its own specialist courts as it sees fit, and that it would do its own consultation. In retrospect and on reflection, that seems to me to be entirely appropriate.
I take on board Rod Campbell’s earlier comment about the fact that there might be a commercial court in Glasgow, but remoter regions might struggle to get that kind of service. It occurs to me that it would be entirely appropriate for the Lord President to set up a commercial court in Aberdeen or wherever, perhaps for the time being, to deal with those things. He really does not need our advice on how to do that.
It seems to me that it is a very good thing that the sheriff court appeals system should be binding nationally. There is very little sense in holding on to the idea that sheriffs principal should make appeals only for their sheriffdom. However, I wonder whether the idea of a single sheriff on the bench at appeals is the right way to proceed. I think that history tells us that appeal cases are often improved if there are three members on a bench. I recognise that there would be a cost implication to that, but I suspect that that might be where we want to go with appeals.
Finally, Citizens Advice Scotland pointed out how important in-court advice can be. A way of avoiding litigation and the lawyers is to get people talking to each other sensibly beforehand. I commend to the Government its doing all that it can to ensure that there is more of that.
17:18