Scottish Human Rights Law Group

This case concerned a trial within a trial in which the accused stated their objections to the admissibility of evidence which the Crown intended to elicit from police officers about the contents of conversations between one accused and his co-accused which the officers had overheard and recorded.  The officer had been posted specifically to listen outside the adjacent police cells …

The petitioner prisoner petitioned for judicial review of a policy of the respondent Scottish Prison Service and/or the prison governor that a pre-recorded message be attached to all outgoing telephone calls, informing the recipient that the call was coming from a prison.

The House of Lords confirmed the competency of, and mens rea for, a finding of contempt of court against Scottish government departments.   The underlying legal and factual basis on which the contempt had arisen was from an undertaking given on behalf of the Scottish government – in lieu of an interim interdict being pronounced against them in respect of their …

The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a claim to the effect that the requirements of Article 8 prevented the admission of evidence in her trial for attempting to smuggle heroin into prison of the terms of an intercepted telephone call between the accused and a prison inmate.  The suggestion that Article 8 required a warning that there be a warning …

The House of Lords took the view that the upholding of by the lower courts in Scotland of a claim for Public Interest Immunity taken by the Ministers without any judicial inspection of the documentation which the Ministers sought to protect was an unsatisfactory procedure and arguably in breach of the petitioners’ Article 6 fair trial rights.
Full report available here.