Jonathan Mitchell QC

Answers to last month’s quiz below. Nobody got more than one question right, so rather than embarrass my loyal readership I am awarding myself the prize in terms of Rule 5.

1. Which published Court of Session opinion was removed from the Scotcourts website at the request of one party because its contents were said to be commercially confidential? Hat-tip to Douglas Macgregor of Brodies for this one, and also for supplying some of the background. The case is BSA International v Irvine 2009 CSOH 77, an opinion of Lord Glennie’s which discusses the duties of expert witnesses and also describes a potentially significant distinction between Scots and English law as to legal professional privilege. Douglas says Continue Reading »

The Edinburgh Legal History Blog, from Professor John W. Cairns and Dr Paul du Plessis of the Edinburgh Centre for Legal History, is the latest addition to the stable of blawgs from the School of Law at Edinburgh University. Its mission statement is “to raise issues of interest to legal historians, especially those interested in the history of Scots law and of the civilian tradition“. Continue Reading »

1 September marked the first meeting, in 1716, of the Scottish Commission on Forfeited Estates; in the words of one historian¹, ‘a spectacular bureaucratic fiasco‘. This passage is from Chambers’ Domestic Annals of Scotland²:

This day met at Edinburgh a set of commissioners appointed under a late act ‘to inquire of the estates of certain traitors, and of popish recusants, and of estates given to superstitious uses, Continue Reading »

1. Margaret Sankey, ‘Jacobite Prisoners Of The 1715 Rebellion: Preventing And Punishing Insurrection In Early Hanoverian Britain‘, Ashgate, 2005, at page 138. [back]
2. The whole of the ‘Domestic Annals’ are published online here. [back]

The Court of Session term ends on Friday. Only three more days to be careful…

9 July 1709

Forasmuch as of late, indecent and disrespectfull expressions are so frequent in informations, petitions and answers, that it is necessary ane effectuall remedy be provided against the same; therefore the Lords of Councill and Session ordain all advocates to be careful, that all petitions, answers, informations and other papers to be put in the boxes, be formed and drawn with all decent and respectfull expressions Continue Reading »

It is twenty years since the United Kingdom introduced the principle of carriers’ liability for immigration, by which transport operators are penalised if they fail to operate an entirely effective system for policing immigration: see this article for a concise explanation of the legislation in its context. This principle has, however, a far more ancient ancestor in Scots law than is generally known.

On 21st June 1614 the Privy Council passed the following Act: Continue Reading »

Text of the Act of Sederunt, 27 April 1535 (three years after the establishment of the Court of Session), instituting access to justice on the basis of need:

The Lordis ordainis that forsemikle as our Soverane Lord has directe his writingis to thame, makand mentioune, that his mynde is, that pure miserable persounis sall have mair hasty expeditioune of justice nor utheris, because thai have na substance nor expenss to remane and wayte apoune the table: And to that effect hes constitute and ordanit ane man of law to procure for the pure, to be payit yerlie be the Thesaurare; desirand thairfore the Lordis to mak provisoune and ordinance, that the saidis pure folkis mycht have expeditioune of justice; thairefor the Lordis assigns Friday wolklie for calling of all summondis and actionis concerning the pure folkis, quhen oportunite may be had for the Kingis matteris; and als to be sene and confiderit be the Lordis quha are pure folkis be inspectioune, and be the aith of the Procurator, declarand that thai tak na profit for procuratioun for sic pure folkis.