Human rights and other approaches

Let’s Be Heard has been created through the use of several vital approaches. These include a human-rights based approach, equalities, trauma-informed, as well as accessibility. These approaches all work together to ensure everyone in Scotland is able to share their experiences with the Inquiry.

Your right to participate

Under international human rights law, people have the right to choose to participate in public life. The Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry has taken this into consideration and is giving people the opportunity to share their experiences of the pandemic to inform the Inquiry’s investigations and recommendations.

The Inquiry is also following human rights guidance by taking positive action to help people participate as equally and as fully as possible. Positive action includes creating processes, materials and activities that include everyone and do not discriminate. It also means that participation must be meaningful – it has to have a purpose and take place early enough to be useful.

Let’s Be Heard will uphold these rights by:

• carrying out its activities at an appropriate stage of its investigations;
• recognising the impact the pandemic will have had on people, and adopting a trauma-informed approach to gathering their experiences, offering choice wherever possible;
• ensuring that public participation in Let’s Be Heard plays a meaningful role within the Inquiry’s investigations, reporting and recommendations;
• offering different versions of materials, including easy read, British Sign Language (BSL) and translations into other languages;
• encouraging groups that have good relationships with communities to hold discussions, and providing reasonable expenses for these groups;
• considering submissions from all people equally and accepting them in different formats, including audio files; and
• using the information we receive to create reports for the Inquiry Chair, legal team and counsel to help guide their investigations.

Children’s rights

Children and young people have the right to be heard and to be listened to. This is enshrined in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Article 12 says:

• children have the right to have opinions and for these opinions to be heard and taken seriously;
• children and young people should feel able to express their opinions; and
• children should be given the information they need to make good decisions.

To uphold this right, Let’s Be Heard will give children and young people clear information about how they can take part and how we will use the information they share with us. The submissions from children and young people will be considered equally alongside those from people of other ages.