Good morning, convener and committee members, and thank you for inviting me to give evidence today.
There is no doubt that the Scottish Criminal Bar Association and the Faculty of Advocates as a whole recognise very well the scale of the challenge that the criminal justice system faces, particularly in relation to restarting jury trials. However, as we have said previously, those challenges cannot and will not be solved without keeping justice at the centre of the solution.
It is fair to say that, at the start of the crisis, the association did not think that we would be expending energy on resisting the abolition of jury trials. We have viewed our role in the process as being twofold. First, we see the association as a defender of an integral and indispensable part of our criminal justice system that also plays a key role in our democratic process—namely, trial by jury. Secondly, our role is to do what we can, as a body, to utilise our expertise and practical experience to assist in getting our criminal justice system back up and running as effectively as possible, in order to get us through this temporary crisis and the extraordinary challenges that it brings.
We remain vehemently opposed to non-jury trials. It is important that I emphasise that again—notwithstanding that there is widespread opposition to non-jury trials and the fact that the Cabinet Secretary for Justice has said that their use is no longer the Scottish Government’s preferred option. Indeed, as far back as 21 April, he said that the options that were being considered were those that had the most support, namely options 1, 3, 6 and 8 in the Government discussion document.
The spectre of non-jury trials was raised again as recently as 19 May by Eric McQueen, who is the chief executive of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, when he addressed the committee about their potential. The SCTS, of course, has the key role in implementing the solutions that will be chosen by Parliament.
The Scottish Criminal Bar Association recognises that there will be a backlog, as there will be in all public sectors including dentistry, medicine and teaching. We are not alone in that respect. To some people, non-jury trials might seem to be the cheapest and most convenient way of addressing the backlog, but cheap and easy are not sound bases for a criminal justice system. Convenience should not outrank or take precedence over justice. If we face extraordinary challenges, we must employ the maximum extraordinary efforts to meet them.
The Scottish Criminal Bar Association is prepared and willing to meet the challenges. We are pleased and delighted that after only two meetings of her working group, Lady Dorrian has announced that two initial jury trials will proceed in July, with more trials no doubt being rolled out after that.
We also welcome and acknowledge the amount of hard work and continuing efforts of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service that have culminated in the recent announcement of the resumption of preliminary hearings and various other procedural hearings—including, as we understand it, taking of evidence on commission—that will begin to call again at the High Court as of 8 June.
We believe that the options that are currently being pursued by the Government and that feature in Lady Dorrian’s pilot trials are workable, proportionate and the best way forward in addressing the current issue. The Scottish Criminal Bar Association is committed to them. Once we are back to some form of normality, we can get down to addressing the remaining backlog, and we see that being done through what is envisaged in option 6 of the discussion document.