With Scotland’s criminal justice system already under pressure, John Logue, crown agent and chief executive of the Crown Office, warned that meeting the deadline to indict around 2,000 cases by 1 December would be “incredibly difficult” and could further strain the courts.

Temporary time-bar extensions, introduced as part of the government’s Covid-19 emergency response, will expire in December, reducing the time limit between an accused’s first appearance on petition and trial from 18 to 12 months, and for those on remand, from 320 to 140 days.

Ms Constance told The Scotsman that the government was “very mindful” of the issue and was in discussions with the COPFS on how to “support that transition”.

“We have some options around that, and that’s just about ensuring there are no cliff edges,” she said. “We don’t want cases to be lost because they’re time-barred, and neither do we want the court processes completely clogged up because, on a case-by-case basis, there are applications to extend the time-bar.”

She suggested one option could be to apply the pre-pandemic time-bars only to new cases from 1 December, rather than retrospectively affecting those already in the system. Any such change would require a statutory instrument and the approval of Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee.

Mr Logue acknowledged that the 2020 emergency legislation had been “over optimistic” in its assessment of how quickly the justice system would recover post-pandemic.

Ms Constance emphasised that the criminal justice system is facing a “new reality”, with demand increasing due to the success of both police and prosecutors in bringing cases forward. “That of course is due to the success of both police and prosecutors, which is to be welcomed, but it does place a demand on the system,” she said.

Despite these measures, concerns remain over funding constraints. The Scottish government has allocated £20.3 million in its 2025/26 budget for post-pandemic recovery, which will only maintain current trial court capacity and not increase it.