In 1998, Fiona Lang was charged under the Road Traffic Act of being in charge of a motor vehicle while over the limit: drink driving. Fiona pled the defence of necessity, saying she was fleeing in fear for her life. The sheriff dismissed her plea, discounting the evidence that Fiona provided to support her claim. She was charged, and leave to appeal was refused.

This episode, by discussing Fiona's story, we take a closer look at the impact of perspective in legal decision making. Whose stories are told in court? Whose stories matter? What type of evidence is deemed legally relevant, and what type is disregarded?

About the Scottish Feminist Judgments Podcast: 

Is the law neutral, and does it serve us all equally? The Scottish Feminist Judgements Project (SFJP) attempts to answer these questions. Legal academics and practitioners got together to re-write historical cases through a gendered lens. In their re-writing, the feminist judges could only use tools -  laws, evidence, and social understanding of the world - that could have been accessed by the original judge and jury at the time of the original judgement.

Learn more about the SFJP