Three parties now examining getting rid of not proven verdict
Scotland’s not proven verdict could be scrapped after Nicola Sturgeon agreed the option should be reconsidered, while the Conservatives and Greens have also pledged they would remove it as an option for juries in the next parliamentary term.
The First Minister said it was time the verdict – which legally means the same as not guilty – was “looked at” in the light of the “shamefully low” conviction rate for rape and sexual assault cases, while the Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Greens said they want to see it abolished.
Rape Crisis Scotland has been campaigning to see the verdict option removed from the justice system. It said “not proven” is used disproportionately in rape cases. According to its statistics, in 2016-17, only 39 per cent of rape and attempted rape cases resulted in convictions – the lowest
rate for any type of crime – with nearly 30 per cent of acquittals being not proven, compared with 17 per cent for all crimes and offences.
MSPS previously voted in February 2016 to reject a Labour bid to abolish the not proven verdict. At the time the SNP government voiced concerns about a provision which would require two-thirds of a jury to support any verdict.
Ms Sturgeon said she had recently changed her mind on the issue. She said as a lawyer there had been “three totemic things” which made Scots law distinctive: the not proven verdict, the need for corroboration in trials, and that 15 people were on a jury.
She said she had “maybe had a bit of a lawyers’ view” of the not proven verdict, but added: “The conviction rate for rape and sexual assault is shamefully low. And I think there is mounting evidence and increasingly strong arguments that the ‘not proven’ verdict is a part of that. So I think it is something that it is time to look at.”
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has already said that ending the three-verdict system would be a “key pledge” in his party’s election manifesto. He said: “This verdict has no place in a modern justice system.”
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater said: “Having an ambiguous third option as a possible verdict in criminal trials is confusing for juries and unfair on both complainers and the accused.”