SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT DEBATES FATAL ACCIDENT INQUIRIES

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2015 :: RMTnews 12 RMT gave oral evidence to the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament recently as part of ongoing discussions around the Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths (Scotland) Bill. The Bill’s policy objective is to reform the law governing the holding of fatal accident inquiries (FAIs) in Scotland, and to implement recommendations made in the 2009 Review of the Fatal Accident Inquiry Legislation led by Lord Cullen. Among other things, the Bill aims to enact new provisions to modernise the system of FAIs in Scotland, to extend the categories of death in which it is mandatory to hold an FAI, and permit discretionary FAIs into deaths of Scots abroad where the body is repatriated to Scotland. RMT called for the Bill to be amended to achieve better outcomes from the FAI process for victims’ families access to justice and industrial safety standards, through the following changes: • Stronger powers to back up FAI determinations – At present there are no significant changes in the Bill which would give determinations (issued by the Sheriff at the end of the process) regulatory teeth to prevent industries ignoring or choosing not to act on determinations because the sanction is so light. This must be addressed if FAIs are to become more relevant to the families of victims of fatal incidents at work and for the industries in question to learn and implement lessons. • Start of an FAI – RMT supports statutory timeframes between a fatality at work and the start of an FAI as the most effective way of reducing the time lag in the overall FAI process. Families of the 16 crew and offshore workers that died in the fatal offshore helicopter incident in April 2009 had to wait nearly five years for the FAI process to report, with no meaningful outcomes in terms of justice for victims’ families. A better balance between the needs of accident investigators and victims’ families needs to be found in the Bill. SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT DEBATES FATAL ACCIDENT INQUIRIES RMT calls for better access to justice for victims’ families and industrial safety standards in Scotland