Part 1Victims and Witnesses Commissioner for Scotland

Miscellaneous

22Protection from actions of defamation

(1)

For the purposes of the law of defamation—

(a)

any statement made to the Commissioner has absolute privilege,

(b)

any statement in the Commissioner’s report on an investigation has absolute privilege,

(c)

any other statement made by the Commissioner has qualified privilege.

(2)

In this section—

(a)

a reference to a statement being made to or by the Commissioner—

(i)

includes a statement being made to or by (as the case may be) a member of the Commissioner’s staff or an agent of the Commissioner,

(ii)

does not include a statement made to or by (as the case may be) an individual when the individual is not acting in the individual’s capacity as the Commissioner, a member of the Commissioner’s staff or an agent of the Commissioner,

(b)

“statement” has the same meaning as in the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Act 2021.