 How effective is the Scottish justice system when it comes to handling controversial deaths? The Scottish Parliament's Justice Committee is considering this question as it examines a proposed law which would reform fatal accident enquiries. The sorts of deaths they're held into and some of the processes around them. The purpose of the fatal accident enquiries bill is to bring up to date. It's several decades before we had legislation. So that's the first general purpose. The bill aims to speed up decisions around FAIs, allow them to be reopened and for them to take place in venues other than courts. It would see fatal accident enquiries automatically triggered in cases where a child dies in secure accommodation. It requires people and organisations to respond to the sheriff when recommendations have been made in an FAI. And it permits enquiries into the deaths of Scots overseas. But in its stage one report, the committee is interested in other areas too. Specific issues raised by the committee were the fact that if we have the death of someone in the armed forces in Scotland, it's not mandatory there's a fatal accident enquiry. That's because of the special status of the armed forces. We've asked the Scottish Government to discuss with the Westminster Government how that might be developed. And secondly, there was the issue of deaths abroad. And there was a requirement in the legislation that the body had to be brought back home, repatriated. We didn't see why that would always be necessary or even if indeed it could be the case. So we've asked the Government to change the bill to say that you don't have to bring back a body to show that you have a fatal accident enquiry in Scotland on that death abroad. One of the things that struck the committee was that lack of clarity about why a fatal accident enquiry is actually held. It's held in the public interest to see whether there are lessons which can be learned. But people are often not clear about how that interacts with possible criminal proceedings and possible civil proceedings which arise from the death. We also felt it was really important that families are kept informed whether there is a possibility of an FAI being held. They need to know what is happening and they need to be kept informed about the stages of the FAI process. You can get further information about the bill and the work of the committee through our web page.