SCOTLAND’S chief prosecutor James Wolffe QC has used a Human Rights Day lecture to underscore his belief that there is no conflict between providing “appropriate and meaningful support to the victims of crime” and maintaining an independent prosecutorial service.
The Lord Advocate was responding to comments from the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, Gordon Jackson QC, who in September said he felt that the independence of prosecutors was being eroded.
In an open letter to Mr Wolffe, Mr Jackson said that while “an independent prosecutor has always been at the heart of our system” he was worried that “this admirable principle is being eroded in practice”.
“For too long those most affected [by crime] were largely ignored, given little or no information,” he said.
“That has changed and rightly so. Now, there are proper support systems and channels of information. Judges are given victim impact statements. But I think the balance has gone wrong.
“Victims and their relatives now seem to feel that the prosecutor is their lawyer acting for them.
“They expect that their wishes will not only be heard, but acted on.”
In his lecture Mr Wolffe, who was himself Dean of the Faculty between 2014 and 2016, said that public prosecutors who act independently and in the public interest “are essential to an effective criminal justice system” that “deals fairly with people accused of crime, secures justice for the victims of crime and punishes those who are convicted of crime”.
“As head of the system of prosecution and investigation of deaths in Scotland, I am obliged by statute to exercise my responsibilities independently,” Mr Wolffe said.
“That is no mere shibboleth - it is a constitutional imperative which I take seriously. I am ably assisted by the Solicitor General for Scotland [Alison Di Rollo], and expertly supported by the Crown Agent [David Harvie] and his staff, but responsibility for the direction and leadership of the prosecution service is mine and mine alone.”
Mr Wolffe said that it is a prosecutor’s duty to ensure that victims of crime feel confident to speak up and that the profession seeks “to support and enable them through the criminal justice process”.
“I do not, for my part, believe that there is any conflict between resolute professional prosecutorial independence and the provision of appropriate and meaningful support to the victims of crime,” he added.
He added that it was in the public interest that the lawyers who prosecute on his behalf “exercise their judgment independently, robustly, forensically and objectively on the whole evidence available”.
“An effective and rigorous prosecution service secures that we have a system which is directed to protecting the fundamental rights of victims of crime and, thereby, respecting their human dignity,” he said.
“At the same time, a fair prosecution service insists on respect for the fair trial rights of persons accused of crime – fair trial rights which are a non-negotiable aspect of our collective commitment to fundamental rights and which respect the human dignity of those who are accused of crime.”
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