Scots Post Office sub-postmasters who were wrongfully convicted as a result of the faulty Horizon IT system will be exonerated under proposed legislation introduced to Scottish parliament.

The Horizon IT scandal has been called one of, if not the biggest, miscarriages of justice in the UK.

Dating back to the 1990s, it resulted in hundreds of Post Office operators being wrongfully prosecuted for theft, fraud, and false accounting due to faulty software. In total, around 900 people have been prosecuted.

Two months ago, the UK government introduced legislation to quash the convictions of sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted and provide financial redress. However, this particular bill only extended to England and Wales.

The Scottish government is now expediting its version of the bill through the Scottish parliament, so that justice and redress can be delivered to victims as quickly as possible in line with the UK bill.

On top of having their convictions automatically cleared, the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences (Scotland) Bill, if passed, will give those wrongfully convicted access to the UK government financial redress scheme.

Back in March, the UK government said that its financial redress scheme would involve an interim compensation payment, with the option of taking a fixed and final offer of £600,000 to help people rebuild their lives.

Further, those who were not convicted or part of legal action against the Post Office but still suffered due to Horizon failures would have the option to receive a fixed payment of £75,000.

Speaking on the Scottish bill, and the frustration around Scotland not being included in the UK government’s bill, justice secretary Angela Constance said:

“Innocent sub-postmasters had their lives ruined by being wrongly convicted of offences of dishonesty on the evidence of the faulty Post Office Horizon system. The quickest, easiest route to overturn these miscarriages of justice would have been for the UK government to extend their Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Bill to cover sub-postmasters in Scotland.

“However, our repeated requests for this were refused. Our bill, therefore, mirrors that of UK legislation to ensure parity for affected sub-postmasters in Scotland with those elsewhere in the UK and to ensure access to the UK government’s compensation scheme.

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“The scale of the scandal and the length of time that the victims have waited for justice means we are taking an unprecedented step of introducing legislation to right this terrible wrong and asking Parliament for it to be processed as an emergency bill.

“The Scottish government will not do anything to jeopardise equality and parity for victims, so the final stage of the bill cannot be considered in the Scottish parliament until after the UK legislation has been passed. This will ensure that MSPs can take account of any amendments made to the UK bill.”

With the expedited process, a Stage 1 debate and vote on the general principles of the bill is expected to take place in the Scottish parliament next week on 21 May, with Stage 2 amendments considered on 22 May.