FOI

General Prosecution Policy and Guidance

This sub-class contains information about general prosecution policy and also legal guidance issued to procurators fiscal about the preparation and prosecution of all criminal cases. This includes details of guidance on the investigation of crime, precognition work, the investigation of sudden and suspicious deaths, guidance in relation to children as victims, witnesses or accused and COPFS relationship with victims, witnesses and next of kin.

Some guidance has been removed from this sub-class in its entirety under section 35 of the FOI (Scotland) Act 2002 because its publication would prejudice substantially criminal investigation and prosecution.

The excluded guidance is summary proceedings guidelines, national case marking guidelines, high court marking guidelines, most circulars and chapter 3 (case marking) of the Book of Regulations.

The remaining guidance has been edited to remove information within each document or chapter that would prejudice substantially the investigation and prosecution of crime. Whether a document has been edited will be made clear in the list.

The following list gives a flavour of the type of information which is available, but other information can also be found within the Publications section of the website.

If you still have difficulty in accessing the information you require, please contact

Publicationscheme@copfs.gsi.gov.uk for assistance.