« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
The Summary Justice Review Committee: REPORT TO MINISTERS
Foreword
I have great pleasure in presenting the report of the Summary Justice Review Committee. I believe that our recommendations, taken as a whole, represent a good solution to the problems which there currently are within the summary criminal justice system in Scotland and will help create a modern, efficient summary justice system, suitable for Scotland. The emphasis is on simple but effective processes which will retain and, I hope, enhance the confidence of the public and take proper account of the needs of victims and witnesses. We have been guided throughout our discussions by the need in any future system to consider the system as a whole and to make the best possible use of the resources available and likely to be available.
These resources are first and foremost the people who work for the criminal justice system at each of its stages - from the police, when crimes and offences are detected or reported, through to social workers and the Scottish Prison Service who have to deal with those who are convicted. A criminal justice system which makes the best use of their talents and their time is likely to be a good system. We believe that our proposals, if implemented, will do that. The criminal justice system also requires considerable financial resources - for the police, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, the Scottish Court Service, the Scottish Legal Aid Board, local authorities, lawyers, judges, the courts, criminal justice social work, prisons and agencies which deal with victims, witnesses and offenders. We believe that our proposals will make more effective use of these resources too.
Members of the Committee gave a great deal of their time to the consideration of the many complex and inter-related issues which we have had to consider, not just at meetings of the Committee and its sub-groups but on many other occasions and in many other ways, latterly considering and commenting constructively on drafts of parts or the whole of the report. They brought their considerable but varied experience to bear on the identification of the problems which required to be addressed and how they might be resolved. They did so in an imaginative, forward-looking and impartial way.
The Committee is particularly indebted to our secretariat: Hugh Dignon, Noel Rehfisch and, before him, Steven Macgregor. The range of issues which they have had to investigate has been very wide. The problems which we considered are problems which have arisen elsewhere in the United Kingdom and abroad. The amount of work which was done by them is not apparent from reading the report. Some of the information which we tried to gather simply was not there, though it sometimes took considerable effort to discover that that was so. While the information which was gathered informed our views, the report refers to those parts of it which survived scrutiny and have been considered worthy of inclusion.
We are indebted too to many others who have done work for the Committee, including assistance with the preparation of this report. Staff of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and of the Scottish Court Service provided us with very valuable information which could not have been made available without substantial effort on their part. We had considerable help from statisticians in the Scottish Executive Justice Department, Sandy Taylor in particular. We thank those who carried out formal research at our request. Although we mention them in the report, we are indebted to all those who took the trouble to make representations to us in writing, who attended the practitioners' workshops which we held and gave us the benefit of their views and experience or who talked to us in the course of our consultations, in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, the Netherlands and in Australia. I am particularly grateful to Peter Beckingham, the British Consul-General in Sydney, who arranged an invaluable programme of meetings with those whom we most wanted to meet when two of us visited Sydney. Similarly helpful arrangements were made in connection with our visit to Melbourne. The British Embassy in the Hague made faultless arrangements for us to meet those who could be of most assistance to us there as did the Hon. Mr Justice Gillen for our visit to Northern Ireland.
« Previous | Contents | Next »