Chamber and committees

Thank you.

You have given the committee some helpful figures: around 11 per cent of such business will come from the sheriff court, while 47 per cent of business will come from the High Court. That is a significant difference. What will the High Court look like in the new circumstances? Will it just be quieter?

Good morning, Lord Advocate. Thank you for being so vocal on the importance of doing something in Parliament about the scandalous increase in the number of sexual offences cases.

I am interested in the mechanics of the specialist court. You and the Lord Justice Clerk have made a good case for it, but my questions relate to how it would operate and how it would fit in with the current court system. You gave the committee some useful figures earlier on the cost of cases being prosecuted in the High Court and in the sheriff court. Does the Government fully appreciate what the resource implication of the specialist court would be?

I am trying to get my head around what the specialist court would look like. It looks as though it would be a substantially large court with a substantially large number of cases, and it would not be part of the High Court. It would be separate from the High Court, although as Lady Dorrian said, her vision is very much that it would be a parallel court. That is not enshrined in the proposed legislation, and I questioned Lady Dorrian on that.

That aside, does the Government fully appreciate the resource implications for setting up such a court?

I suppose that the fine line that you mentioned is about where cases go. Currently, they go to either the High Court or the sheriff court. You said that, in the case of the High Court, an advocate depute has a single case and you talked about the cost of that. Will that fine line disappear with the specialist court? In other words, who will you instruct to take on those cases? Will ADs take them on? How will you decide on that, if there is no distinction between cases, as there is at the moment, which means that you decide to send them either to the High Court or to the sheriff court, if you see what I mean?

I am looking for some clarity from you, Danielle. The proposals that we have to scrutinise are huge, so it is really important to understand what the measures would look like if they were passed into law. I am sure that you will tell me if you are the wrong person to respond to this.

Something is confusing me about an answer that you gave to a question from Russell Findlay about a murder case. At the moment, murder can be tried only in the High Court, because it is the most serious crime and it attracts the highest sentence. If there is a sexual element, it will attract an even higher sentence. That is where I need clarity. Surely there could be no change to that. I am concerned about there being some grey area, such that murder cases could go to a court that is designed for sexual offences. I do not understand why there is any grey area for cases where the victim is dead. Will you explain?

That is clear. Will that change?

Forgive me, but I like to visualise things. It could be, then, that the specialist sexual offences court could meet in what would be Glasgow High Court, but it would be called something else. It could still involve judges that would have presided over those cases in the High Court. Am I right in saying that?

I understand that.

First, I commend you for the work that you have done and the way that you have presented it to the committee.

It is clear that there is a need for change—I am absolutely clear about that. I want to give some context to my question. You have made the case for a specialist court, but I am interested in where it would sit in the hierarchy—excuse my terminology, but that is the way that I see it as a layperson. I am interested in what the status of the specialist court would be and whether you think that the bill as drafted reflects what you had intended in your report.

For example, the report says that the rights of audience in a sexual offences court should be limited to advocates and solicitor advocates, but that is not reflected in the bill. Given that I convened the committee at the time, I can go as far back as the reforms when Lord Bonomy not only produced the report on preliminary hearings but proposed extending the sentencing powers of sheriff courts. There is a parallel here for me. What sticks in my mind is that, when he proposed extending the sentencing powers of sheriff courts to five years, he was clear that the sanctioning of counsel for serious cases should still be allowed. You will know that it is now very rare for counsel to be sanctioned in the sheriff court.

I think that there is a very good case for having the specialist court, but my concern is about the change in the rights of audience if the court is created. Under the bill, solicitors would be able to represent an accused person not in cases of rape or murder but for serious sexual offences. Do you have any concerns about whether the bill reflects what is said in the report about maintaining the high status of the court? How do you see the status of the specialist court in relation to the High Court?

Thank you very much for your insights. I know that you have been involved with this for a long time, and I thank you for that, too.

I was surprised to hear you talk about a two-tier system. Could you elaborate a bit more on that? In my lines of questioning to the Lord Advocate and Lady Dorrian—and I was very content with their answers—I was suggesting that an important distinction would still have to be made with regard to the seriousness of crimes. Indeed, that is why we have a High Court and a lower court—that is, the sheriff court. My understanding is that cases go to the lower court, because they do not require to go to the High Court. When you talked about the system being two-tier and the proposed court creating a level playing field, were you referring to the trauma-informed aspect? It would concern me if it were being suggested that we wrap up all the crimes into one court, given that some are more serious than others.