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 will 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:

  • 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  

What we have done so far

                                Report cover for Access to justice for everyone discussion paper. Man stands scratching his head looking at a pole with many signposts.     

                            "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

Long Description

"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

Long description ends.

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

A list of these services will be published as an accessible alternative to the map before 31st October 2024.

 

The second map covers services relating to:

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

A list of these services will be published as an accessible alternative to the map before 31st October 2024.

 

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.  An accessible Word version of this report will be published here by 31st October 2024.

                    Charcoal arrow pointing down a bit and to the left

What we will do next

Dark background, red icon of a padlock and key

Social care. A group encircled by a love heart.

            

 

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.

 

 

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 produce reports for each element and they will be published in due course.

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 the next four years.

                               Strategic Plan 2024-28

Long Description

Front cover of the Scottish Human Rights Commission's 2024-28 Strategic Plan. Dark background with colourful circles. On some of the circles are symbols including people, scales of justice and a map of Scotland.

Long description ends.

These priorities are:

Impact of poverty

Impact of poverty

Places of detention

Places of detention

Access to justice

Access to justice

Rights most at risk

Rights most at risk

How to find out more

For media enquiries about this project, please contact

For further information, contact us on hello@scottishhumanrights.com 

To find out more about our previous work on issues relating to access to justice, see the following projects: