Key Documents and FOI Material

Primary source material on procedural fairness in Scottish criminal justice

Some of the most significant material relevant to procedural fairness in Scottish criminal justice is not found in textbooks or legal commentaries. It is found in the records of public bodies, in the responses to Freedom of Information requests, in the minutes of internal meetings, in the correspondence between officials and institutions, and in the documents that public bodies produce when they are required to account for how they have operated.

Accused.scot has used Freedom of Information law extensively to obtain material that would otherwise remain invisible to the public. That material does not always produce dramatic revelations. More often it produces something quieter and in some respects more significant. It reveals the gap between how institutions describe themselves and how they actually operate. It reveals the questions that have not been asked, the data that has not been collected, the assessments that have not been carried out, and the debates that have taken place internally but have never been made public.

This section brings together the most significant primary source material obtained and analysed by Accused.scot, alongside key legal documents, court judgments, and parliamentary material that bear directly on the issues the site examines.