Enabling jurors: equality impact assessment

Recommendations and Conclusion

It has shown that those who identify as having a disability will be the most directly impacted by this policy as it removes the legislative barrier for them to participate in jury service, enabling them to receive the communicative support they need during the trial and jury deliberation.

The impact was found to be positive in terms of the Public Sector Equality Duty to:

• eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation
• advance equality of opportunity
• promote good relations between those with and without protected characteristics

This is because the policy is intended to make the justice system more inclusive, ensuring legislation is not a barrier to people who need communication support as a result of disability being able to serve as jurors. The intention is that legislation will be broad enough to enable a range of forms of communication support to be used by jurors in the deliberation room. It will mean that disabled and non-disabled people will have the opportunity to work together as part of juries, something which is not possible at the moment.

In terms of the lack of available data, it would be useful to consider what data on jurors’ communication needs could be collected to help ensure that they are supported to access the justice system. This can be tied into the implementation plans for the policy, with the Scottish Government continuing to meet with SCTS and key stakeholders, both during and after implementation of the legislation, to monitor its progress. Section 66A of the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill (which was added at Stage 2) also requires that two reviews will be conducted on the operation of the whole Bill, at five-year intervals. This will provide further opportunities to monitor the implementation of the policy.