Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JAMES DALRYMPLE OF STAIR.

The Commissioners of Linlithgowshire
v.
The Heritors thereof

Date: 12 June 1674

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Sir Walter Seatoun and James Dundass, having charged the heritors of Linlithgowshire for five pounds a-day for their commissioners' charges to Parliament, from the first day of Parliament to the last day thereof, conform to the late Act of Parliament; they suspend on these reasons:—1mo. That the Act bears expressly, “This allowance to be for the commissioner's attendance on the Parliament;” and, therefore, there is none due for such days and time as the commissioners were absent out of Edinburgh, or for such days as the Parliament sat and they were not present in Parliament. 2do. There can no more time be accounted than what the Parliament actually sat: but in recesses of Parliament, the chargers can have no allowance, unless they had been upon the Articles; and none at all, when the Articles were not to sit, during the recess. It was answered, That the Act of Parliament, in the statutory part, gives this allowance, from the first day to the last day of Parliament, without any condition of being absent or present, which the Parliament can only quarrel; and there are no sederunts marked of Parliament, nor any thing in the Act relating thereto. The Lords found the reasons relevant thus, viz. That the days should be abated which the Commissioners were not in Edinburgh, or suburbs thereof, and so were not attending the Parliament; and for such recesses of Parliament that were of that endurance that the commissioners of Parliament could conveniently go home, do business, and return, according to the several distances of their dwelling, in which recesses the Articles were not to sit; but that they were to attend, if the Articles sat, to look to the interest of their shires, albeit they were not upon the Articles; and allowed no days to the commissioners for their coming to, or going from the Parliament, in respect of their near distance.

Vol. II, Page 271.