Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975

444 Manner and time of appeal

(1) Application to have a case stated shall be made at the time when judgment is given, or at any time within 10 days thereafter, and shall be signed by the appellant or his solicitor and either written on the complaint or lodged with the clerk of court, and where the latter course is adopted the clerk of court shall enter in the record of proceedings the date when the application was lodged and shall thereupon intimate the appeal to the respondent.

(2) Where such an application has been made by the person convicted, and the judge by whom he was convicted dies before signing the case or is precluded by illness or other cause from doing so, it shall be competent for the convicted person to present a bill of suspension to the High Court and to bring under the review of that court any matter which might have been brought under review by stated case.

(3) Without prejudice to any other power of relief which the High Court may have, where it appears to that court on application made in accordance with the following provisions of this section, that the applicant has failed to comply with any of the requirements of subsection (1) of this section, the High Court may direct that such further period of time as it may think proper be afforded to the applicant to comply with any requirement of the aforesaid provisions.

(4) Any application for a direction under the last foregoing subsection shall be made in writing to the Clerk of Justiciary and shall state the grounds for the application, and notification of the application shall be made by the appellant or his solicitor to the clerk of the court from which the appeal is to be taken, and the clerk shall thereupon transmit the complaint, documentary productions and any other proceedings in the cause to the Clerk of Justiciary.

(5) The High Court shall dispose of any application under this section in like manner as an application to review the decision of an inferior court on a grant of interim liberation, but shall have power—

(a) to dispense with a hearing; and

(b) to make such enquiry in relation to the application as the court may think fit;

and when the High Court has disposed of the application the Clerk of Justiciary shall inform the clerk of the inferior court of the result.

(6) Section 457(a) of this Act shall apply for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of this section.