(1)Any rule of law or the provisions of any enactment which enable a previous conviction to be libelled as an aggravation of an offence shall cease to have effect.
(2)Where a person is convicted of an offence, any rule of law which precludes the laying and proof before the court of any previous conviction in respect of that person shall cease to have effect, and the court may have regard to any such conviction in deciding on the disposal of the case.
(3)The provisions of any enactment relating to the laying and proof of previous convictions before a court shall apply to a conviction laid before a court in pursuance of this section.
(4)Nothing in the foregoing provisions of this section shall affect the provisions of any enactment relating to the sentence which a court may pass on a second or subsequent conviction.
(1)A previous conviction may be proved against any person in any criminal proceedings by the production of such evidence of the conviction as is mentioned in this section and by showing that his fingerprints and those of the person convicted are the fingerprints of the same person.
(2)A certificate purporting to be signed by or on behalf of the Chief Constable of Glasgow or the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, containing particulars relating to a conviction extracted from the criminal records kept by the person by or on whose behalf the certificate is signed, and certifying that the copies of the fingerprints contained in the certificate are copies of the fingerprints appearing from the said records to have been taken in pursuance of regulations for the time being in force under section 11 of the Prisons (Scotland) Act 1952, or under section 16 of the Prison Act 1952, from the person convicted on the occasion of the conviction or on the occasion of his last conviction, shall be sufficient evidence of the conviction or, as the case may be, of his last conviction and of all preceding convictions and that the copies of the fingerprints produced on the certificate are copies of the fingerprints of the person convicted.
(3)Where a person has been apprehended and detained in the custody of the police in connection with any criminal proceedings, a certificate purporting to be signed by the chief constable concerned or a person authorised on his behalf, certifying that the fingerprints produced thereon were taken from him while he was so detained, shall be sufficient evidence in those proceedings that the fingerprints produced on the certificate are the fingerprints of that person.
(4)A certificate purporting to be signed by or on behalf of the governor of a prison or of a remand centre in which any person has been detained in connection with any criminal proceedings, certifying that the fingerprints produced thereon were taken from him while he was so detained, shall be sufficient evidence in those proceedings that the fingerprints produced on the certificate are the fingerprints of that person.
(5)A certificate purporting to be signed by or on behalf of the Chief Constable of Glasgow, and certifying that the fingerprints, copies of which are certified as aforesaid by or on behalf of the Chief Constable or the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to be copies of the fingerprints of a person previously convicted and the fingerprints certified by or on behalf of a chief constable or a governor as aforesaid, or otherwise shown, to be the fingerprints of the person against whom the previous conviction is sought to be proved, are the fingerprints of the same person, shall be sufficient evidence of the matter so certified.
(6)The method of proving a previous conviction authorised by this section shall be in addition to any other method of proving the conviction.
(1)At the end of section 65 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 (which among other things relates to the procedure in courts of summary jurisdiction on the determination of an appeal) there shall be added the following subsection :—
“(4)Where an appellant who has been granted interim liberation does not thereafter proceed with his appeal, the court from which the appeal was taken shall have power, where at the time of the abandonment of the appeal the person is serving a term or terms of imprisonment imposed subsequently to the conviction appealed against, to order that the sentence or, as the case may be, the unexpired portion of that sentence relating to that conviction should run from such date as the court may think fit, not being a date later than the date on which the term or terms of imprisonment subsequently imposed expire.”
(2)At the end of section 71 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 (which relates to the powers of the High Court of Justiciary on the hearing of appeals) there shall be added the following subsection:—
“(7)Where at the time an appeal is dismissed or refused as aforesaid the appellant is serving a term or terms of imprisonment imposed subsequently to the conviction appealed against, the High Court shall have the like powers in regard to him as may be exercised by a court of summary jurisdiction in pursuance of subsection (4) of section sixty-five of this Act.”
Section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1949 (which empowers a court to order certain discharged prisoners to notify their addresses) shall cease to have effect.
Where a court has made an order for the forfeiture of an article, the court or any justice of the peace may, if satisfied on information on oath—
(a)that there is reasonable cause to believe that the article is to be found in any place or premises; and
(b)that admission to the place or premises has been refused or that a refusal of such admission is apprehended,
issue a warrant of search which may be executed according to law; and for the purposes of this section, any reference to a justice of the peace includes a reference to the sheriff and to a magistrate.
For section 26 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1887 (which relates to the giving of notice to an accused of the first diet in solemn procedure) there shall be substituted the following section:—
(1)Where a person is charged on indictment, the notice for the first diet of compearance shall call on that person to appear in the sheriff court before which he appeared on judicial examination unless the Lord Advocate otherwise directs.
(2)The Lord Advocate may make a direction that the first diet of compearance may be taken at a sheriff court other than the sheriff court where the accused appeared on judicial examination either in respect of a class of cases or in respect of particular cases.”
A court, on conviction of a person on indictment, shall have power to correct an error or defect in a notice of previous conviction relating to the person convicted, and accordingly after section 39(1)(e) of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1949 there shall be inserted .the following paragraph:—
“(ee)on the conviction of an accused, person, it shall be competent for a court to amend a notice of previous conviction so laid by deletion or alteration for the purpose of curing any error or defect therein :
Provided that no such amendment shall be made to the prejudice of the accused.”
(1)The following provisions of this section shall apply where a court has refused to admit a person to bail or, where a court has so admitted a person, the bail fixed in his case has not been found.
(2)A court shall, on the application of any such person as aforesaid, have power to review its decision to admit to bail or its decision as to the bail fixed and may, on cause shown, admit the person to bail or, as the case may be, fix bail at a lower amount.
(3)An application under this section, where it relates to the original decision of the court, shall not be made before the fifth day after that decision and, where it relates to a subsequent decision, before the fifteenth day thereafter.
(4)Nothing in the provisions of this section shall affect any right of a person to appeal against the decision of a court in relation to admitting to bail or to the bail fixed.
(5)In the foregoing provisions of this section, any reference to bail includes a reference to caution for interim liberation and any reference to admitting to bail shall include a reference to ordering the finding of caution as aforesaid.
(1)A warrant issued in the Isle of Man for the arrest of a person charged with an offence may, after it has been endorsed by a justice of the peace in Scotland, be executed there by the person bringing that warrant, by any person to whom the warrant was originally directed or by any officer of law of the county or place where the warrant has been endorsed as aforesaid in like manner as any such warrant issued in Scotland.
(2)In this section—
" endorsed " means endorsed in the like manner as a process to which section 4 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Process) Act 1881 applies;
" justice of the peace " includes a sheriff and a magistrate ;
" officer of law " includes a constable within the meaning of the Police (Scotland) Act 1956, a sheriff officer, prison officer and any other person having authority to execute a warrant of court.
(1)A warrant issued in Scotland for the apprehension of a person charged with an offence may be executed in England and Wales by any constable acting within his police area; and subsections (3) and (4) of section 102 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 (execution on Sunday and execution without possession of the warrant) shall apply to the execution in England and Wales of any such warrant.
(2)A warrant issued in England and Wales for the arrest of a person charged with an offence may be executed in Scotland by any constable appointed for a police area in like manner as any such warrant issued in Scotland.
(3)A warrant may be executed by virtue of this section whether or not it has been endorsed under section 14 or section 15 of the Indictable Offences Act 1848.
(4)Nothing in this section affects the execution in Scotland of a warrant to which section 123 of the Bankruptcy Act 1914 applies.
(5)Section 12 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 shall cease to have effect.
Nothing in section 6(3) (extent) of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1957 or in the Summary Jurisdiction (Process) Act 1881 shall be construed as precluding the service in Scotland, with a summons which is so served under the said Act of 1881, of any such notice or statement as is mentioned in subsection (1) of section 1 of the said Act of 1957 (plea of guilty in absence of accused).
A warrant of apprehension issued by the sheriff, to which section 25 of the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1838 applies, may be executed throughout Scotland in like manner as it may be executed within his jurisdiction, and accordingly the proviso to the said section 25 (which proviso restricts the execution of such a warrant without endorsation) shall cease to have effect.
Section 6 of the Prevention of Crimes Act 1871 (which among other things provides for the keeping of a register for Scotland of all persons convicted of crimes, to be kept in Edinburgh) shall, so far as it relates to Scotland, cease to have effect.
The power to make rules conferred on the High Court of Justiciary by section 76(1) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 shall, without prejudice to the generality of that subsection, include power to make provision for the manner in which an accused person or witness may be cited in any proceedings under that Act, and accordingly section 18(3) of that Act (which regulates citation) shall cease to have effect.
For the removal of doubt it is hereby declared that it is competent to prosecute summarily in the sheriff court crimes of robbery and assault with intent to rob.
In paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) of section 4(2) of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 (which subsection places certain restrictions on the jurisdiction of a court of summary jurisdiction other than the sheriff court)—
(a)the limit on the amount involved in certain offences specified shall be raised from ten pounds to twenty-five pounds; and
(b)for the restriction by reference to two previous convictions of any offence inferring dishonest appropriation of property there shall be substituted a restriction by reference to one previous conviction of such an offence.
The maximum period for which a court of summary jurisdiction may continue a case on special cause shown under section 21 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 shall be increased from fourteen days to twenty-one days.
For the removal of doubt it is hereby declared that it is competent for any Scottish court to defer sentence after conviction for a period and on such conditions as the court may determine.