Lord Carloway talks corroboration and the courts service in this year’s SLN Annual Review

Distribution of the Scottish Legal News Annual Review 2017 is now underway and we will be previewing articles appearing in this year’s edition in the coming days.

In this year’s magazine, legal journalist John Forsyth speaks to the Lord President, Lord Carloway, who says “the law is underdeveloped”.

Following on from the Gill Review in 2009, which precipitated wide-ranging civil reform, Lord Carloway made similar prescriptions for the criminal law but found himself on the receiving end of severe criticism after recommending in 2011 that corroboration be scrapped.

But he remains adamant: “I certainly remain committed to what I wrote then and am still committed. I’ve not been convinced otherwise by anything that I’ve heard since.”

And he warns: “Too many of our rules on evidence and procedure seem to have been preserved in aspic.”

Scotland’s most senior judge also comments on how the court service is coping with an increase in trials, pointing out: “We have got rid of a backlog of appeals. It’s a never-ending process. It’s important not to take the eye off the ball and that is one of the drivers of my interest in reforming the rules on admissibility of evidence…”

But the question remains: “How do we make the conduct of cases more efficient without losing the protections of the rights of the accused in criminal cases or the rights of the parties to a fair hearing in civil cases?”

Elsewhere, the Lord President addresses the relationship between the public and the judiciary, noting that “Sometimes it’s not very pleasant for the judge involved or for those who served on the jury and did their best but see their efforts criticised within seconds of their verdict being delivered. There are very few front-page splashes with bold headlines saying ‘judge gets it right’.

And while it’s “quite easy to find fault” with juries, Lord Carloway retains faith in the system, saying “It is very seldom that I have come across a verdict that I could not understand or wasn’t justified even if I might not have reached it myself.”

We even learn that Lord Carloway is an avid bass player.