Meeting of the Parliament 23 April 2024
That is one of the things that the Government has responded to—it will put the specified criteria into the bill. That is what I was trying to speak to, because I still have issues with that. For example, the Government has said that one of the criteria will be how single-judge trials are perceived by those people who are part of the trial process. As you can see, that is very difficult to measure.
I will make a final point on juryless trials: the fact that the Government has now said that it does not intend to bring that measure forward until 2028 is of serious concern to Scottish Labour because, if the Government thinks that there is a benefit to having juryless trials, it should really introduce them in the current parliamentary session.
We support the removal of the not proven verdict, because we believe that it has had its day, but a serious issue remains with how we balance the system to ensure that it remains fair. I think that the Government is coming from the right place in that regard, but suggesting that a jury majority would remain at a simple majority of one in order to convict is wrong. The Government’s problem is that there is no consensus now on what that majority would be. One of the Government’s assertions—rightly so—is that Scotland is the only jurisdiction with a not proven verdict, but we would be the only jurisdiction with a majority of eight out of 12 members.
I know that I need to wind up, Presiding Officer, but, with regard to the specialist courts, Scottish Labour has suggested that we could resolve the issue of rights of audience—which is a serious issue, especially for the accused—and get the balance right by the High Court and the sheriff court having a specific division for that. As things stand, we cannot support the proposals in the bill.
We think that there is too much reform in one bill. We need to examine at stage 2 which of the reforms can really make a difference. The Government has a lot of work to do to convince us. We will be abstaining this evening and, if we cannot resolve those issues at stage 2, we will vote against the bill. It is up to the Government to show that it can resolve some of the outstanding issues.
15:47