"Enhancing respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights to achieve justice and safety for all."

Overview

Connections between human rights and justice and safety are well established. SNAP offers an opportunity to reflect on areas for improvement and consider best practice approaches. The Justice and Safety Action Group has adopted an "inquiry" approach to considering whether steps taken in different areas have been sufficient and adequately reflect human rights standards.

What SNAP aims to achieve

  • Improving access to justice, particularly for children, survivors of violence and abuse, people on low incomes and disabled people.

  • Addressing conerns about the asylum process and capitalising on opportunities in the new Refugee Integration Strategy.

  • Improving the protection of human rights within the criminal justice system, particularly for children and when investigating and prosecuting sexual offences.

  • Tackling the growing problem of hate crime, including improving reporting, recording and education to address underlying discriminatory attitudes.

  • Embedding human rights in policing including through training and accountability - for example, ensuring legality and proportionality of stop and search.

  • Improving understanding of victims' rights including the right to an effective remedy and ensuring justice for victims of historic child abuse.

  • Improving the protection of children from violence.

  • Improving Scotland's approach to addressing Violence Against Women through a new strategy and action plan that does more to protect women's rights in practice.

Progress and future plans

The Justice and Safety Action Group holds thematic round table discussions that bring together networks of organisations and individuals to 'interrogate' progress on the priority areas identified above, and to identify areas for improvement. Areas covered to date include:

  • 'Equally Safe', the Scottish Government strategy on Violence Against Women

  • Police structures and cultures

  • Police stop and search

  • Hate crime

  • Historic child abuse 

Future areas for interrogation include access to justice, criminal justice reform and human trafficking.