309.By virtue of section 20 of the Interpretation and Legislative Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 applies to the Crown. However, in line with usual practice for Acts of the Scottish Parliament, section 106F has the effect that the Crown cannot be found criminally liable for the offence created by section 106D(1). However, through the mechanism in subsection (2), any unlawful conduct on the part of Crown bodies can be declared unlawful by the Court of Session. Section 106F(3) has the effect that this section does not exempt civil servants etc. from criminal prosecution.
310.Subsections (3) to (5) of section 104 also amend the 1995 Act to insert a new section 47A into it.
311.Section 47 of the 1995 Act governs reporting restrictions where criminal proceedings involve children. New section 47A would disapply section 47 where proceedings are taken against any person in respect of an offence listed in section 106A(5) of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2016 and the person who is the victim of the offence is a child.
312.This is to ensure that the lifelong right of anonymity for child victims of sexual offences (and the limited other offences covered by section 106A(5)) will take precedence over the existing, more limited provision in section 47 of the 1995 Act. Under that section, the reporting restrictions relating to child victims apply only to newspaper reporting and do not cover the wider forms of publication (include online publication) that new sections 106A to 106F of the 2016 Act cover. In addition, the restrictions under section 47 generally cease to apply on the child reaching the age of 18.
Crown Application Anonymity for victims Section 106F – Crown application: offence under section 106D