Whilst the House of Lords of the United Kingdom is the upper chamber of Parliament and has government ministers, for many centuries it had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers and for impeachments, and as a court of last resort in the United Kingdom and prior, the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of England.
The High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court in Scotland. The High Court is both a trial court and a court of appeal. As a trial court, the High Court sits on circuit at Parliament House or in the adjacent former Sheriff Court building in the Old Town in Edinburgh, or in dedicated buildings in Glasgow and Aberdeen. The High Court sometimes sits in various smaller towns in Scotland, where it uses the local sheriff court building. As an appeal court, the High Court sits only in Edinburgh. On one occasion the High Court of Justiciary sat outside Scotland, at Zeist in the Netherlands during the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, as the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. At Zeist the High Court sat both as a trial court, and an appeal court for the initial appeal by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
A sheriff court is the principal local civil and criminal court in Scotland, with exclusive jurisdiction over all civil cases with a monetary value up to £100,000, and with the jurisdiction to hear any criminal case except treason, murder, and rape, which are in the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of Justiciary. Though the sheriff courts have concurrent jurisdiction with the High Court over armed robbery, drug trafficking, and sexual offences involving children, the vast majority of these cases are heard by the High Court. Each court serves a sheriff court district within one of the six sheriffdoms of Scotland. Each sheriff court is presided over by a sheriff, who is a legally qualified judge, and part of the judiciary of Scotland.
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is the independent public prosecution service for Scotland, and is a Ministerial Department of the Scottish Government. The department is headed by His Majesty's Lord Advocate, who under the Scottish legal system is responsible for prosecution, along with the sheriffdom procurators fiscal. In Scotland, virtually all prosecution of criminal offences is undertaken by the Crown. Private prosecutions are extremely rare.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi was a Libyan who was head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli, Libya, and an alleged Libyan intelligence officer. On 31 January 2001, Megrahi was convicted, by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, of 270 counts of murder for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on 21 December 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. His co-accused, Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, was found not guilty and was acquitted.
The Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial began on 3 May 2000, more than 11 years after the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988. The 36-week bench trial took place at a specially convened Scottish Court in the Netherlands set up under Scots law and held at a disused United States Air Force base called Camp Zeist near Utrecht.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government, established by the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.
William Taylor, QC has been a Scottish advocate since 1971 and a QC since 1986. He has also been a barrister in England and Wales since 1990 and a Queen's Counsel there since 1998. He has specialised in criminal defence work since the 1980s.
Robert Black is Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh. He has been an Advocate in Scotland since 1972, was in practice at the Bar and became a QC in 1987.
Herbert Swire, known better as Jim Swire, is an English doctor best known for his involvement in the aftermath of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, in which his daughter Flora was killed. Swire lobbied toward a solution for the difficulties in bringing suspects in the original bombing to trial, and later advocated the retrial and release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the originally convicted suspect in the case.
Graham John Thomson Forbes, CBE is a priest of the Scottish Episcopal Church. He was Provost of St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh from 1990 until June 2017.
Sir Gerald Henry Gordon is a Scottish lawyer who is the editor of Scottish Criminal Case Reports and of Renton and Brown's Criminal Procedure, and author of The Criminal Law of Scotland.
James Alexander Mackay QPM retired as Deputy Chief Constable of Tayside Police in 2001. He has had considerable experience of criminal investigation and major inquiries. He is especially interested in forensic science and has served on national committees particularly in the field of DNA in police investigation.
Gerard Sinclair is Chief Executive of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC).
Tony Gauci was the proprietor of Mary's House, a clothes shop in Sliema, Malta, who was a witness in the prosecution of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in relation to the Lockerbie Bombing.
Solicitor advocate is a hybrid status which allows a solicitor in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong to represent clients in higher courts in proceedings that were traditionally reserved for barristers. The status does not exist in most other common law jurisdictions where, for the most part, all solicitors have rights of audience in higher courts.
Alexander Featherstonhaugh Wylie, Lord Kinclaven was a Senator of the College of Justice, a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland.
Colin John MacLean Sutherland, Lord Carloway, is a Scottish advocate and judge who has served as the Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General since 2015. He was previously Lord Justice Clerk from 2012 to 2015 and has been a Senator of the College of Justice since 2000.
Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is a hybrid or mixed legal system containing civil law and common law elements, that traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. Together with English law and Northern Irish law, it is one of the three legal systems of the United Kingdom. Scots law recognises four sources of law: legislation, legal precedent, specific academic writings, and custom. Legislation affecting Scotland and Scots law is passed by the Scottish Parliament on all areas of devolved responsibility, and the United Kingdom Parliament on reserved matters. Some legislation passed by the pre-1707 Parliament of Scotland is still also valid.
James Kerr Findlay was a Scottish magistrate who was appointed as the visiting judge and judicial commissioner of the Supreme Court of Brunei Darussalam from 2001 to 2022. In addition, he has held several positions in the Hong Kong Attorney General's Chambers.