Chamber and committees

I am not on the committee, and I have been listening with great interest to the debate. One thing that I picked up on from the report was about

“the tension between the ‘expert’ knowledge of scientists ... and ‘local’ knowledge held by practitioners based in the field”.

In my view, the comments that Jim Fairlie made were absolutely appropriate in that there has to be discussion and consideration given by all sides.

I will bring John Swinney back in.

Eamon Keane, do you have anything to add?

That was helpful.

We will bring our session to a close. Thank you both very much for what has been a helpful and informative session.

That concludes our public agenda item for today. At our next meeting, on 6 December, we will continue our evidence taking on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill by hearing from representatives of survivors of crime on the abolition of the not proven verdict and on jury majorities.

Can you say more about your observations of what you felt were the strengths of the mock jury trials that you arranged?

Thank you. That is really helpful. I am just going to bring in other members because I know that they will be keen to probe those findings. Rona Mackay would like to start off.

Good morning, and welcome to the 32nd meeting in 2023 of the Criminal Justice Committee. We have received no apologies. Fulton MacGregor joins us online.

Under our first item of business, we will continue to take evidence on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill. We are beginning phase 2 of our scrutiny of the bill. That focuses specifically on part 4, which covers the abolition of the not proven verdict and changes to jury sizes and majorities. We expect phase 2 to run to the end of this year, after which we will consider the last two parts of the bill.

We are joined, from the University of Glasgow school of law, by Professor Fiona Leverick, professor of criminal law and criminal justice, and Eamon Keane, lecturer in evidence and criminal procedure. I welcome you both.

I refer members to papers 1 to 3. I intend to allow about 90 minutes for this session, but it might run on, if required, as part 4 is a key area of the bill.

I will begin with a general opening question, which I will direct to Professor Leverick. The Scottish jury research that you were involved in informed the approach that the Scottish Government has taken in part 4 of the bill. Before we consider the relevant findings of the research, will you outline what you see as the strengths and possible limitations of the research methodology in relation to, for example, the use of mock juries?

I call Rona Mackay.

I have one final question, which comes back to something that I noticed in your submission and was curious about. It is on the issue of safeguarding against wrongful conviction in sexual offence cases. In your submission, you say that the use of the not proven verdict

“is particularly prevalent, but particularly problematic, in sexual offence cases, where it may enable juries to give weight to myths and stereotypes in avoiding verdicts of conviction.”

You go on to say:

“while there is no clear evidence that the verdict does in fact safeguard against wrongful conviction, its existence has been used to justify Scots law not introducing other measures which would, meaning that it may in fact be actively harmful in this regard.”

I am looking for a bit more commentary on that.