Scottish Human Rights Law Group

It was objected that proceedings before an honorary sheriff who had legal qualifications involving the grant of bail and the continuation of hearing to future date contravened the petitioner’s right to a hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal.    The court found that the proceedings did not involve any determination of a criminal charge and so rejected the challenge without …

A differently constituted High Court of Justiciary than in Starrs v Ruxton 2000 JC 208, chaired by the Lord Justice General, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry sitting with Lord Sutherland and Lord Weir rejected the contention made in Starrs, that the Section 11(2)(c) permitted the Secretary of State to make a temporary shrieval appointment only for the particular purposes of dealing …

A pre-HRA and Scotland Act House of Lords decision, in effect the Scottish Spycatcher case in which their Lordships confirmed that a third party (the Scotsman newspaper) which came into information from a former Crown servant (which it was conceded could not be said to be damaging to national security) could not be restrained from publishing it in Scotland notwithstanding …

One area of civil litigation in which Article 8 considerations definitely do apply and bite is in relation to applications under Section 1 of the Administration of Justice (Scotland) Act 1972 for the seizure and recovery of evidence without warning to the haver and prior to the raising of litigation, the so called “dawn raid procedure”.   The rules of the …

The Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the Article 8 compatibility of the summary procedure for the issuing by a justice to the police of a search warrant of a private home in which  illegal drug use was suspected.
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