Identification parades and purposes for which a court duty solicitor must be available in solemn and summary procedures

For attendance at an identification parade, you have the choice of attending personally or arranging for a representative, who must be a solicitor, to attend in your place.

The client needing representation at an identification parade may be represented by the solicitor of his or her own choice.

You are entitled to payment as the duty solicitor.

Automatic criminal legal aid is available [section 22(1) (b) of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986] in a case of:

• Murder
• Attempted murder
• Culpable homicide

If you are acting as the duty solicitor, your services will be required from the point your client is brought into police custody on the charge [regulation 5 of the Criminal Legal Assistance (Duty Solicitors) (Scotland) Regulations 2011.].

You will also be available when the client is first brought before the court for examination [regulation 6].

In all cases brought under solemn procedure, your services as the duty solicitor will include:

• A preliminary plea to the competency or relevancy of the petition
• Conduct of a plea in bar of trial
• Conduct of a mental health proof
• An application for bail or review of bail
• An appeal in respect of bail

Your services as a duty solicitor cannot extend beyond the time when your client is admitted to bail or is committed until liberated in due course of law.

In solemn procedure, the client is not obliged to accept the services of the duty solicitor, and may instruct the solicitor of their choice.

Automatic criminal legal aid is available when your client is [section 22(1)(c) of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986]:

• Being prosecuted under summary procedure
• Is in custody
• Has been liberated by the police on an undertaking to appear in court

Such automatic aid will continue until the conclusion of the first diet at which the client tenders a plea of guilty or not guilty. Where a plea of guilty is then tendered, this will last until the case is finally disposed of.

Your services as the duty solicitor are available to the client on the day they are first brought before a court to answer the complaint, and include:

• A preliminary plea to the competency or relevancy of the complaint
• Conducting any plea in bar of trial
• Conducting any mental health proof
• Conducting any proof in mitigation or proof of a witness statement
• An application for bail or review of bail
• An appeal in respect of bail

Not guilty/ guilty plea

Your services as a duty solicitor normally cease when a not guilty plea is tendered but you should continue to represent the client in connection with an application for liberation [section 22(1)(d) of the 1986 Act].

If a guilty plea is tendered, you should continue to provide legal aid services as a duty solicitor until the case is finally disposed of, including a proof in mitigation, and any diets to which the case is adjourned for reports or otherwise deferred for sentence.

If the case is deferred to a date outwith the period of the initial solicitor’s duty, the client may use the duty solicitor then acting.  A duty solicitor can be paid for further appearances under the “follow-up” arrangements, to a maximum of £150.

You may apply to us for an increase in this limit in exceptional cases.