News

The Civil Division of the Sheriff Appeal Court has remitted a claim made under Simple Procedure rules for the return of a television to its original owner back to the sheriff after it was ruled that he was not entitled to determine that its prospective purchaser had failed to comply with an unless o

Douglas J. Cusine challenges Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf to break his silence on Scotland's malicious prosecution scandal. A month ago, I posed the question in relation to the Rangers malicious prosecution case: “Where has the Justice Secretary gone?” He has not even said whether ther

The Scottish Law Commission will publish delayed discussion papers on personal injury payouts and homicide this year following the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic. Writing in the foreword to its annual report for 2020, chairperson Lady Paton said the Commission's publications over the course of

Six new members have been appointed to the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) Board with effect from next month. The new members who will take up their positions on 1 April are:

Dear Editor, How far we have fallen? It was with horror that I read in your newsletter (19th March 2021) of the proposed pilot for juryless rape cases.

Agricultural tenants could benefit from additional protections in the aftermath of the Holyrood elections, writes Hamish Lean. With the Scottish Parliamentary elections looming, Fergus Ewing has been sketching out changes that the SNP are considering to agricultural tenancy legislation if they remai

Thomas Mitchell details a personal injury case exemplifying that liability often comes in shades of grey.  As a personal injury lawyer, specialising in representing those injured in road traffic collisions, I read with interest the decision of Lady Wise in the recently reported decision of Wido

A snail in a bottle that was no storm in a teacup, Lord Kinclaven encourages readers to declare Donoghue v Stevenson the greatest entry in Session Cases as we celebrate 200 years of those venerable law reports. The legal significance of the decision in Donoghue v Stevenson, 1932 SC(HL) 31, is b

Judges are workers and have every right to join a union to protect themselves from discrimination and bullying, one of the UK's largest trade unions has said. GMB wrote to the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales last week after an MP raised concerns about "bullying, harassment, whistle blowing a

Police have been left stumped following the theft of hundreds of trees from the French countryside. Around 400 fine 100-year-old oaks and 50-year-old spruces were cut down in a couple of nights and removed from an area around a village in the Pyrenees.

To mark the bicentenary of Session Cases this year, the Scottish Council of Law Reporting is asking readers to name their top three cases. It is thought that Session Cases is the longest continuous set of law reports still in production in the common law world outside the US, independence having mad

A Crown appeal concerning whether it was entitled to libel in a docket the occurrence of an accused’s sexual assault conviction in another jurisdiction has been allowed by the Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary. Ronald Adams, the respondent, had previously pled guilty to a simil

There are no plans for weekend courts, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) has said. In an announcement of a strategy to resolve the criminal case backlog, the SCTS said weekend courts formed no part of these plans. 

In its judgment in the case of Gilligan v Ireland, the European Court of Human Rights has unanimously held that there had been no violation of Article 6 (right to a fair trial within a reasonable time) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerned the length of several sets of

The Scottish Police Authority will receive an additional £10 million to invest in modernisation of the police fleet. The funding will enable the purchase of around 235 new ultra-low emission vehicles by Police Scotland and will also help support the replacement of 140 existing petrol