86.Section 16 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 (“the 2003 Act”) sets out the circumstances in which information about an offender is to be provided to an eligible person who is registered to receive information. Previously, section 16 only applied where the offender had been sentenced to imprisonment or detention of 18 months or more, to life imprisonment, or to detention without limit of time. Section 35(2) amends section 16 so that it applies in relation to offenders who have been sentenced to imprisonment or detention for any period of time. Subsections (3) and (4) make changes to section 17 and 17ZA of the 2003 Act to provide victims with rights to make representations in certain circumstances where an offender is being released on licence, regardless of the length of the offender’s sentence.
87.Section 35(6) and (7) of the Act repeal sections 27A and 27B of the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 (“the 2014 Act”). Those sections made provision about the giving of information to victims of offences in respect of which the offender was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of less than 18 months. The changes being made to section 16 of the 2003 Act mean that those victims will now be entitled to receive information about the offender by virtue of that section, and so the provision made in sections 27A and 27B of the 2014 Act is no longer needed. Subsections (8) and (9) make consequential changes to section 29A and 29B of the 2014 Act, which deal with child and deceased victims of offences, to reflect this change.
Crown Application Part 3 – Victims’ Rights to Receive Information Section 35 – single victim notification system