Meeting of the Parliament 23 April 2024
I acknowledge that, but I hope that the cabinet secretary agrees that some progress has been made, in that judges are now expected, in every case, to talk about rape myths. I credit Rape Crisis Scotland and other organisations for making that happen.
However, from listening to victims, it is clear that we need to break down the barriers that prevent them from telling their story in court, and to allow more access to advocate deputes. We heard from victims that they feel like bystanders at their own trial, and we absolutely must fix that. We support the embedding of trauma-informed practices, which is included in the bill, although, as the committee has said, the scope of trauma-informed practice should be extended to all practitioners, including the defence.
A whole-system approach needs to be taken in order to make the system better for victims. We talked about a single point of contact. From the pleadings of victims to the Criminal Justice Committee, it is clear to me that they want to have a single point of contact, communication with the Crown, communication with the advocate deputes in their case and an understanding of what is going on in the trial that concerns them. We can do that without legislation.
Delay is one of the biggest reasons why victims are exercised about how the criminal justice system treats them. I point out, as I have many times, that even laws that are passed by the Parliament to prevent delay, which specify that there should be a criminal trial within 140 days, are excessively exceeded, as they have been for several years.
We also support anonymity for rape victims.
However, most of the other changes that are proposed in the bill are still problematic, and I will go through them in some detail.
Scottish Labour opposes the use of juryless trials as set out in the bill. It is concerning that the proposal is described as a “pilot”. Sheila Webster of the Law Society of Scotland made the point that
“It is not truly a pilot. We are talking about live cases here. People’s lives will be permanently affected, and at the end of the pilot we might decide that it was not a very good idea.”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 24 January 2024; c 62.]
A key issue is that of what would constitute success. I acknowledge that the Government has said that it will put that in the bill, but we have been told that although it is not designing a system specifically to increase conviction rates, it will still assess outcomes—which, we assume, will include conviction rates.
In relation to the pilot, Professor James Chalmers told the Criminal Justice Committee that
“it would be surprising if conviction rates did not factor in the decision whether to go forward with the reform”—[Official Report, Criminal Justice Committee, 24 January 2024; c 24.]
and, despite the Government’s claims, legal professionals have voiced their concerns that conviction rates are likely to be used as a marker of success.