Book reviews

Review of Criminal Procedure

The Journal, April 2004, page 54

This is a long awaited second edition of Sheriff Sheehan’s text on Criminal Procedure, first published as a spinoff from the Stair Memorial Encyclopaedia in 1992. The changes in criminal procedure since the date of first publication have been immense, and David Dickson, Principal PF Depute at the Crown Office has contributed many of the amendments to the new volume with Sheriff Sheehan, assisted by Sheriffs Alf Vannet and Frank Crowe on sentencing and appeals respectively.

This book serves two distinct purposes. First, for the busy practitioner, it is a portable encapsulation of the key features of criminal procedure, bringing together relevant statutes, regulations and case law. The second edition reflects the extensive activity in criminal procedure brought about by the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into domestic law, in particular its application to the prosecutors and courts of Scotland by the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Scotland Act 1998.  This is done both in the second chapter (“Courts, Prosecutors and General Principles”), which includes a section on compliance with the Convention, and in the affected parts of the other chapters which, as in the first edition, follow the chronology of procedure in criminal cases from initial steps to appeal. There is a short concluding chapter on fatal accident inquiries.

Secondly, for the student of criminal procedure, in addition to the assimilation of such an extensive body of statute and case law, it provides in the preliminary chapters an excellent history of the development of criminal procedures in Scotland and an overview of general principles. This introduction is valuable well beyond the bounds of student learning, because it reminds the reader of the underlying features of our system, and the principles by which it has been guided. This is particularly important at times when the procedures are subject to intense scrutiny through fresh eyes.

The particular fresh eyes of recent years have been the appeal courts, applying rights jurisprudence from the Convention and comparative systems, and a Scottish Executive and Scottish Parliament with an intense interest in criminal justice reform. Reforms, which may be triggered by a perceived problem in a distinct area of procedure, have to be informed by submission and argument based upon true understanding of the system as a whole and its underlying principles, and this text assists in that understanding.

Of course statutory reform is ongoing and relentless. The outcomes of the Bonomy report on High Court procedure will have progressed through the Scottish Parliament after the completion of this text. The outcomes of the McInnes review on summary proceedings will inevitably have an effect, quite apart from other amendments to procedures, including disposals, arising from tangential enactments of the Scottish Parliament such as the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Vulnerable Witnesses (Scotland) Bill. As Sheriff Sheehan states in the foreword, “legislative changes are now so frequent that no comprehensive up-to-date version of statutory procedural law exists in printed form”. Even a looseleaf text, which this book is not, is slightly out of date by the time of publication.

In this climate of constant change it is all the more important to have to hand a text which lays out the essentials comprehensively and in accessible form. This book acts as a thorough, articulate, well-informed base, correct as at 1 June 2003, to enable the reader to check, prepare, advise and obtain prompts for further preparation (which will be essential as further changes in procedure take effect). Perhaps most importantly, it enables the reader to see the wood that could be lost amongst the trees of the burgeoning forest of reform.

Margaret L Ross, Solicitor, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Aberdeen