The Scottish Government has published details of responses received to the consultation it ran between February and May of this year entitled ‘Making Justice Work: Courts Reform (Scotland) Bill’.

The consultation was part of a wider programme of reform and invited views on proposals to restructure the way civil cases and summary criminal cases are dealt with by the courts in Scotland. The consultation included a draft Courts Reform (Scotland) Bill aimed at modernising and improving the Scottish court system.

The proposals set out in the consultation paper included:

• to give the Court of Session the status it deserves as a senior civil court and significantly increase the role of the sheriff courts;
• to create a new judicial tier within the sheriff court (‘summary sheriffs’), with jurisdiction in certain civil cases and in summary criminal cases;
• to create a new Sheriff Appeal Court with an all-Scotland jurisdiction to hear civil appeals from the sheriff courts and summary criminal appeals;
• to create a specialist personal injury court with an all-Scotland jurisdiction;
• to improve procedures for judicial review within the Court of Session;
• to facilitate the modernisation of procedures in the Court of Session and sheriff courts; and
• to promote Alternative dispute resolution through court rules.

According to the Scottish Government, it received 115 responses, and there was a very clear majority support for almost all proposals and concepts detailed in the consultation.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0.

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