3.The Act is in two substantive parts (with the final part dealing with the usual final provisions applicable to the whole Act).
4.Part 1 of the Act deals with measures relating to the modernisation of procedures in Scotland’s criminal courts. Some of these measures make permanent (with some minor adjustments) existing provisions which have been operating on a temporary basis, while others are new. The measures are as follows—
	facilitating electronic signing and sending of documents in criminal cases,
	enabling virtual attendance at criminal courts,
	establishing a national jurisdiction for callings from custody,
	changing the scale of fiscal fines, including the permitted maximum,
	creating a process through which body-worn video footage can be treated as sufficient evidence of the time, date and place of the events recorded,
	supporting the use of images in place of physical evidence in criminal cases,
	permitting copies to be treated as equivalent to the item copied in criminal proceedings, without additional authentication, and
	setting out a procedure by which charges can be added to an indictment after the point of service.
5.Part 2 of the Act creates a statutory domestic homicide and suicide review model, under which deaths falling within the review model will be reviewed with a view to learning systemic lessons which can be used to help prevent future abusive behaviour within relationships and deaths resulting from such abuse.
The Act