Hansard

As we close the debate, I thank everyone who has shaped the bill: survivors, campaigners, practitioners and the organisations whose expertise has been essential, specifically Scottish Women’s Aid, Victim Support Scotland and many others. I thank, too, the members and clerks of the Criminal Justice Committee for their meticulous scrutiny of the legislation, and I thank the legislation team for all their work. I am grateful to the cabinet secretary and her team for the various discussions that we have had about the bill over the past months.

The bill is rooted in learning and listening. It reflects what can happen when we really listen to the experiences of victims and survivors. Victim Support Scotland has been clear that the reforms must make justice smoother, safer and more humane.

The flexibility of virtual attendance, the use of digital evidence and the modernisation of documentation are not simply technical improvements; they are changes that can reduce trauma and delay. But, as Scottish Women’s Aid has warned, technology alone is not enough. Modernisation must be guided by trauma-informed, feminist principles, and survivors of abuse must have choice and control of how they participate in proceedings. The Greens support those measures because they show that efficiency and empathy can go hand in hand and that a justice system can be both effective and compassionate.

The second part of the bill, which deals with the establishment of domestic homicide and suicide reviews, reminds us that justice is not only about courts and trials but about learning from failure. Both Scottish Women’s Aid and Victim Support Scotland have championed that reform because they know what is at stake: real lives, real families and real grief. Victim Support Scotland’s work with families bereaved by murder and culpable homicide gives it a unique perspective. It has rightly insisted that families must have a voice and must have choice and control in those reviews, including the right to request reconsideration when new information emerges. Scottish Women’s Aid has made it clear that those reviews will succeed only if they are independent and transparent, with equal representation from the third sector. Their expertise must be embedded, not merely consulted.

Passing the bill is only the beginning. We must now ensure that reviews lead to change; that recommendations are implemented, tracked and made public; that families are supported through every step; and that survivors see a system that learns from its mistakes rather than repeating them.

Justice can never be static. It must evolve with empathy, grounded in the belief that every life lost to abuse is one too many. This bill, alongside the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, which passed just a couple of weeks ago, can help reshape Scotland’s justice system to make it more compassionate, more transparent and more just. It will take vigilance, courage and collaboration to make that promise real, because we know that we still have work to do, despite the passing of both bills, but today, with this bill, we take an important step, and the Scottish Greens will proudly vote for it at decision time.