Scotland

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Defence solicitors in Scotland have begun their first week of industrial action over domestic abuse cases after a collapse in talks with the Scottish government over reforms to legal aid. They will also decline to act where an accused has no solicitor and cannot represent themselves — and will

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Controversial Scottish plans to introduce juryless trials have been condemned by the Scottish, English, Irish and Northern Ireland bars. Following a meeting of the four bars in Belfast recently, their leadership issued a joint statement on the proposed removal of juries for rape and other serious se

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Scottish solicitors are abandoning talks on reforms to legal aid, having "lost confidence" in the Scottish Government after progress stalled for two years. The Law Society of Scotland said it would no longer participate in discussions on the creation of a review mechanism for legal aid fees, Scottis

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A Scottish judge who played a pioneering role in establishing a dedicated drug court in Glasgow and later lent his expertise to the Northern Ireland courts service has passed away. Sheriff Lindsay Wood, who visited the Belfast Substance Misuse Court with two other sheriffs in 2021, died following a

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Scottish defence lawyers are preparing to boycott a controversial pilot scheme for juryless rape trials. The plans, which have been advanced for a number of years, would see juries removed from rape and sexual offence trials on the basis that the conviction rate for such crimes is artificially low.

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Scotland's Court of Session has ruled that the UK government acted lawfully in vetoing the Scottish Parliament’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill from receiving lawful assent, after a legal challenge to the block was brought by the Scottish Ministers. It was argued for the petitioners that the p

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Glasgow University has introduced the world's first master's degree in reparatory justice. The degree has been established in partnership with the University of the West Indies (UWI) and comes amid a global campaign for financial reparations stemming from the transatlantic slave trade, Scottish Lega

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The Scottish government will challenge the Secretary of State for Scotland’s use of Section 35 of the Scotland Act to stop the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill going forward to Royal Assent following the Scottish Parliament’s approval of the legislation in December 2022. Social

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Three former lawyers and two other men who masterminded a £1.48 million bank and property money-laundering operation in Scotland have been jailed for a total of 30 years and four months. Solicitors Iain Robertson, Alastair Blackwood and David Lyons along with Mohammed Aziz and Robert Ferguson,

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The Scottish Parliament has passed legislation aiming to improve the system by which transgender people can apply for legal recognition through a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). Once enacted, Scotland will be the first part of the UK to have a gender recognition process based on self-declarati

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