Coronavirus

Police Scotland will be given powers to break up large house parties and councils will be allowed to shut companies down that fail to follow the coronavirus rules. The Scottish government announced the measures as new cases of COVID-19 reached their highest level for almost three months.

Criminal defence solicitors have ridiculed a suggestion that summary trials be held at the weekend as a measure to cope with the mounting backlog of cases.

The impact of the pandemic on public spending decisions in respect of equalities and human rights is to be considered by a Holyrood committee.

The Judicial Institute for Scotland has published a new resource to aid practitioners appearing in solemn trials in the High Court from July 2020.Restarting Jury Trials: Information for Practitioners is based in large part on a briefing paper which was initially drawn up to support those judges

Alan Delaney looks at the approach taken by the ICO during the COVID-19 crisis. Last month the ICO updated its guidance on the regulatory approach it intends to take during the current COVID-19 crisis. This guidance provides employers with some degree of comfort that where they are struggling to com

Carly Forrest, Lauren Kerr and Craig Fulton of Brodies look ahead to Scottish gyms reopening in September. When social distancing measures were introduced in March, we were only allowed to leave our homes for four reasons: medical needs, shopping for basic necessities, travel to and from work (

Passengers from Belgium, Andorra and the Bahamas will be required to self-isolate at home or another specified address for 14 days on arrival in Scotland from tomorrow, following a significant increase in the number of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in those countries. The decision has also been ma

Tom Nener highlights the importance of protecting your brand as criminals take advantage of the pandemic. The coronavirus crisis has provided a fertile platform for sophisticated counterfeiters, as highlighted in recent reports by cross-border law enforcement agencies Interpol and Europol.

At least £150 million has been wasted on unusable PPE procured from a company linked to government ministers, according to papers released through judicial review proceedings. The Good Law Project, led by founder Jo Maugham QC, is pursuing litigation over the UK government's "PPE fiasco" at th

Passengers from Luxembourg will be required to quarantine for 14 days on arrival in Scotland due to an increased number of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19). The decision to remove the country from the list of destinations exempt from quarantine requirements has been made to reduce the risk of the tra

The majority of Scottish firms say they plan to make redundancies once the UK government's furlough scheme comes to an end, according to Addleshaw Goddard's latest survey of Scottish companies. The Addleshaw Goddard Scottish Business Monitor, produced in partnership with the Fraser of

An Edinburgh Law School academic is set to be part of a new £2.1m research study investigating the risks of COVID-19 on Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) healthcare workers. Jointly funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the Uni

Brian McConnachie QC has reflected on the success of the first trial since lockdown in Glasgow, saying we must "ensure that trial by jury survives the pandemic as it survived [the] World Wars". Mr McConnachie tweeted that while it was "odd at first to see an empty jury box" it quickly became "incons

Headhunters are calling on Scotland's legal sector to avoid repeating poor HR decisions made during the financial crisis in order to survive and thrive in a post-COVID-19 economy. In its eighth and latest annual salary guide, written prior to the pandemic, Core-Asset Consulting were already hig

Lord Sumption has admitted that he stopped obeying the coronavirus regulations when they began "reaching levels of absurdity". Speaking to legal journalist Joshua Rozenberg QC (hon.), the former Supreme Court justice said he did not accept that there was a "moral obligation to comply with the law".