British Sign Language (BSL): national plan 2023 to 2029

Access to Justice

Our vision is for a just, safe and resilient Scotland. Issues of Justice affect us all. Justice is the concept of fairness. We must be able to exercise our human and civic rights, in order to live in a just and fair society.

Our long-term goal:

BSL users will have fair and equal access to the civil, criminal and juvenile justice systems in Scotland.

We will:

40

Continue discussions with the BSL Justice Advisory Group, with the aim to regularly review the progress on actions within Justice around BSL and to mainstream BSL into other Justice workstreams.

41

Develop the provision of BSL intermediaries, also known as intralingual professionals or advocates, for BSL users going through the justice system to inform work to be taken forward to support this provision.

42

Support public bodies within the justice sector in exploring ways in which BSL support can be accessed more efficiently for frontline work and emergency response services.