Essential court business only, following UK lockdown

Only essential business will be conducted in the Scottish courts today, following the UK-wide lockdown against the COVID-19 virus announced last night, and no members of the public should attend.

With only workers classed as "essential" permitted to go to work, and everybody being told to stay at home except for strictly limited reasons, Scottish Courts & Tribunals posted a series of tweets (@SCTScourtstribs) to clarify the position.

The Court of Session and High Court will convene and deal with only essential business; business will be  continued or adjourned as required. For Court of Session cases due to call today, solicitors should contact the clerk of court, as listed in the weekly rolls, to establish whether their hearing will proceed or be adjourned. For both courts, no members of the public should attend. Social distancing will be observed for lawyers requiring to attend.

Sheriff courts will convene to deal with custodies and remand cases and any urgent civil business. This is said to include new applications for child protection orders, interim interdicts, children referral appeals, urgent adoptions or urgent interim residence or contact applications and urgent applications in relation to adults with incapacity. If a case can be made to the relevant judge that any other business is urgent, an email should be sent to the court, setting out the reasons. Other cases will be continued or adjourned. No members of the public should attend. Social distancing will be observed for lawyers requiring to attend.

In the Sheriff Appeal Court, only essential business including bail appeals will be heard.

For tribunals, only time-critical hearings of the Mental Health Tribunal will continue to run and these are now all arranged as telephone hearings. All other non-urgent tribunal hearings have been stopped.

Further updates will be provided on Twitter or at this link.