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home > Current Projects > Rights of Appeal, Double Jeopardy and Evidential Questions

Rights of Appeal, Double Jeopardy and Evidential Questions

Commissioners
Chairman and Mr Patrick Layden QC

Team members
Mr Alastair Smith, Project Manager
Miss Chloe Kennedy, Legal Assistant
 

This is a new reference.  On 20 November 2007, the Scottish Ministers invited the Commission -

"To consider the law relating to:

• Judicial rulings that can bring a solemn case to an end without the verdict of a jury, and rights of appeal against such;
• The principle of double jeopardy, and whether there should be exceptions to it;
• Admissibility of evidence of bad character or of previous convictions, and of similar fact evidence; and
• The Moorov doctrine."

Where a trial judge sustains a submission of no case to answer (in terms of section 97 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995), the judge must acquit the accused of the offence in respect of which the submission was made. Where this happens, the accused is acquitted before the defence has given evidence and without the jury being asked to return a verdict. At present, the prosecution has no right of appeal against the judge's ruling on a submission of no case to answer. Nor, in accordance with the principle sometimes referred to as double jeopardy, may the accused be tried again for the same offence.

Work on this reference has been divided into separate projects. We published our Discussion Paper on Crown Appeals (DP 137)  in March 2008, followed by the Report on Crown Appeals (Scot Law Com No 212) in July 2008. We aim  to report on double jeopardy as early as practicable in 2009, and on the other matters in 2010 or 2011.

For more information, please contact: alastair.smith@scotlawcom.gov.uk

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