Reform of homicide law explored in Glasgow seminar

The well-attended event, organised as part of the Commission’s homicide law reform project, included legal practitioners, representatives from Police Scotland and Victim Support Scotland as well as guests from the academic community.

A number of speakers from academia spoke about topics such as the context and prevalence of homicide in Scotland, the structure of homicide law, the mens rea of both murder and culpable homicide and the experience of homicide law reform in England and Wales.

Lord Pentland, chairman of the Scottish Law Commission, said: “We are grateful to our colleagues in academia for delivering such interesting talks on different aspects of homicide law in Scotland and also to all those who attended and contributed to discussions around the presentations.

“In particular, we are extremely grateful to the law schools at the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow with whom we collaborated closely to deliver the event.

“As a law commission, we are keen to engage with as wide a range of people as we can on the homicide law reform project and the seminar is a prime example of that. We thank everyone who took part in such a thought-provoking day which give us plenty of things to think about going forward with the project.”