Section 6: Defence of due diligence
15.Section 6 provides a defence for anyone accused of the offence in section 5. That defence is that they or anyone working for them or representing them had taken all reasonable precautions and had tried to the best of their ability to avoid committing the offence. It is considered that this will require the taking of positive measures such as training staff in their responsibilities. It will therefore not be a defence for accused persons to solely argue that they did not know the shop was in fact open for trade.
Parliamentary History
The following table sets out, for each Stage of the proceedings in the Scottish Parliament for this Act, the dates on which the proceedings at the Stage took place, the references to the Official Report of those proceedings and the dates on which the Committee Reports and other papers relating to the Act were published, and the references to those Reports and other papers.
| Proceedings and Reports | Reference |
|---|---|
| Introduction | |
| 20 March 2006 | Act as introduced (SP Act 41) |
| Stage 1 | |
| (a) Justice 2 Committee | |
| 20th Meeting, 2006 | 5 September 2006 |
| 21st Meeting, 2006 | 12 September 2006 |
| 22nd Meeting, 2006 | 19 September 2006 |
| 25th Meeting, 2006 | 3 October 2006 |
| 26th Meeting, 2006 | 24 October 2006 |
| 29th Meeting, 2006 | 7 November 2006 |
| Report | 14 November 2006 |
| (b) Consideration by the Parliament | |
| 22 November 2006 | Cols 29527–29564 |
| Stage 2 | |
| 2nd Meeting 2007 (Session 2) | 16 January 2007, Cols 3121–3134 & Minutes J2/S2/07/2/M |
| Stage 3 | |
| Consideration by the Parliament | |
| Stage 3 | 7 March 2007, Cols 32778– 32826 |
| Royal Assent | |
|---|---|
| 13 April 2007 | Christmas Day and New Year’s Day Trading (Scotland) Act 2007 (asp 13) |
