Detail of Provisions Schedule – consequential, transitional and transitory provision Part 2 – transitional and transitory provision Paragraph 5: release of short-term prisoners on licence
78.Paragraphs 61 to 63 of these Notes discuss the consequential amendment that paragraph 1 of the schedule makes to section 3AA of the 1993 Act to allow home detention curfew to continue to operate properly despite the changes being made to the automatic early release point for short-term prisoners. However, as noted above, a recent change to section 3AA is due to take effect when section 9 of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 is commenced and removes long-term prisoners from the scope of section 3AA.
79.Until that takes effect, long-term prisoners will continue to need to be referenced within section 3AA. This paragraph of the Act therefore makes transitional provision which sets out how the consequential amendment is to be interpreted until such time as the removal of long-term prisoners from this section takes effect. It provides for the change made by paragraph 1 to take effect immediately but allows the existing reference to long-term prisoners to continue in place unaltered as a stopgap measure.