Commentary on Sections Family liaison charter Section 8 – Family liaison charter
36.Section 8 requires the Lord Advocate to prepare a family liaison charter, after consulting such persons as the Lord Advocate considers appropriate. Subsection (3) provides that the charter must set out information to be made available to bereaved families by procurators fiscal and timescales for the giving of such information. The charter aims to provide guidance on what the bereaved family should expect from the Crown Office by way of the provision of information about death investigations, including the possibility of criminal proceedings and the possibility of an FAI, and the timescales within which that information will be provided. The charter must be laid before the Scottish Parliament and published. The Lord Advocate may revise the charter in which case the revised charter must also be laid and published. The words “procurator fiscal” are defined widely in section 40 of the 2016 Act so as to cover family liaison officers who may not be fiscals themselves.