Access to justice for potential human rights breaches

Why we are spotlighting this issue

In Scotland, our human rights are protected by international and domestic law. These laws should help to prevent breaches of our rights and provide us with routes to access justice when things go wrong.

Yet too often, people in Scotland are experiencing human rights denials and facing barriers that prevent them from accessing justice.

The journey to access justice for human rights breaches can be long, complicated, and expensive, requiring rights holders to have:

knowledge about where to turn for help or how to complain
money for and access to specialist legal advice
time and emotional resilience to pursue different complaints mechanisms

What the project aimed to do

This project is the latest in a programme of work which touches on issues relating to access to justice.

In this spotlight, we have decided to look directly at barriers to accessing justice for different rights and groups. This project looks at:

Access to justice for economic, social, cultural and environmental rights
Mapping human rights-related advice and advocacy services in Scotland
Access to justice for prisoners
Access to justice in community-based social care

"Far too many people in Scotland still experience denials of their basic human rights and dignity every day – and lack effective access to the mechanisms and means to challenge them." Quote from Member of the Commission, Claire Methven O'Brien

Access to justice for economic, social, cultural and environmental rights

In 2023, we commissioned Access to Justice for Everyone, a discussion paper from Professor Katie Boyle, Professor of Human Rights & Social Justice at the University of Strathclyde. The paper focuses on economic, social, cultural and environmental rights and highlights different barriers around access to justice for violating these rights. It also suggests a range of solutions to move towards an access to justice system that is fit for purpose.

Find out more:

Have five minutes? Read this article which explains why new human rights laws must have teeth if they’re going to work for everyone in Scotland.

Have longer? Read the discussion paper Access to Justice for Everyone: How might a new Human Rights legal framework improve access to justice in Scotland today? You can also read a summary of this report and an accessible Word version.

Mapping human rights-related advice and advocacy services in Scotland

We know that a major barrier facing people who try to access justice for potential human rights violations is a lack of information about where to get advice.

In response to this, we jointly commissioned research with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS) to map the landscape in order to gain a better understanding of the availability, distribution, and focus of services offering human rights-related advice and advocacy in Scotland.

We used our research findings to create the two functional maps below which chart advice and advocacy services across a range of human rights-related issues.

The first map covers services relating to:

Education
Housing
Poverty
Social security
Benefits
Health
Mental health
Disability
Social care
Care system

The second map covers services relating to:

Civil justice
Criminal justice
Immigration / asylum
Detention
Equality / Discrimination
Workers’ rights
Biometrics, AI & privacy
Freedom of expression

Find out more

Have five minutes? Read the factsheet, available as a PDF and in Word.

Have longer? Read the research report, available as a PDF. Please let us know if you require this report in an alternative format.

Charcoal arrow pointing down a bit and to the left

Access to Justice for Prisoners

This part of the project looks at the journey to justice for prisoners who may have experienced human rights breaches, mapping a route through the prisoner complaints process and the barriers that they face when seeking justice.

One issue that this project highlighted for us was a lack of accessible information about rights and the law in Scottish prisons. To access justice for potential human rights breaches, people must first understand what their rights and entitlements are, through readily available and accessible information.

In response to this concern, we collaborated with Parkhead Citizens Advice Bureau to develop “Your Rights Under the Scottish Prison Rules”, a guide for people in prison and their families. The guide explains what the law says about rights in prison and how prisoners can make a complaint if those rights are not being met.

The guide was created with the support of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) and is published on their website. We recommend that the Scottish Prison Service and Scottish Government ensure that this guide is made available to prisoners across Scotland, and their families. It should be translated into other languages and made available in accessible formats, including British Sign Language and Easy Read.

We’ll be releasing a report later this year which includes further detail on the challenges of making complaints about prisons, as well as recommendations on how the system could be improved.

Access to justice in community-based social care

This part of the project will focus on barriers to challenging Self Directed Support decisions, specifically when entitlements have been reduced without a reduction in need. We will publish a report on this in due course.

Social care. A group encircled by a love heart.

Additionally, through consultation with rights holders, civil society and key stakeholders during the development of our Strategic Plan 2024-28, we identified access to justice as an area which requires our continued focus. This theme, as well as our top priorities, will inform future Spotlight Projects over this period.

Strategic Plan 2024-28