Miners' Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Act 2022: pardon eligibility - self-assessment guide

Qualifying Criteria

7. To qualify for a pardon, you must be a qualifying individual and have committed a qualifying offence. These terms are explained below.

8. A qualifying individual is:

• A miner (this means an individual employed at any time during the period of 12 March 1984 to 3 March 1985 by the National Coal Board or a small mine licensee (regardless of the type of work they did)); or
• A person who, at the time of committing a qualifying offence, lived in the same household as a miner (as defined above); or was a parent, sibling or child of a miner.

9. A qualifying offence is defined as:

• Breach of the peace;
• Breach of bail, which at the time of the strike was covered by section 3 of the Bail etc. (Scotland) Act 1980;
• Obstructing the police, which at the time of the strike was covered by section 41(1)(a) of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967; and
• Theft.

10. The qualifying offence must have led to a conviction in a Scottish court. Convictions from courts elsewhere (such as in England or Wales) are not pardoned under the Act.

11. For all of the above qualifying offences (with the exception of theft), the offence must have occurred while a qualifying individual was

• Taking part in an activity supporting or opposing the miners' strike; or
• Assembling before or after, or travelling to or from, an activity supporting or opposing the miners' strike (this is sometimes called ancillary activity); or
• Reacting to behaviour which falls within either of the two descriptions above.

12. In the case of theft, this must have been committed to relieve economic hardship arising from taking part in the miners' strike – where either the qualifying individual was a participant in the strike, or the hardship arose from someone else participating in the strike.

13. Offences relating to matters which were not connected to the Miners' strike are excluded from the pardon qualifying criteria - for example, a qualifying person who was convicted for a breach of the peace which related to a personal dispute with another person would not be pardoned for that offence.

Further Information

14. A step-by-step guide to the pardon qualifying criteria is provided at Annex A.

15. Some illustrative examples of the pardon qualifying criteria are provided at Annex B.

16. A glossary of key terms used in this guide is provided at Annex C.