Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER OF FOUNTAINHALL.
Robert Douglass, Younger, v. Bailie Cunningham and Others
Date: 19 November 1695
Click here to view a pdf copy of this documet : PDF Copy
In the bill of suspension given in by Robert Douglass, younger, soap-boiler in Leith, against Bailie Cunningham and others, of a decreet of the Magistrates of Edinburgh, as justices of the peace, fining him in £100 Scots for opprobrious language against the Magistrates, and particularly against the said Bailie Cunningham, and ordaining him to give bond not to defame or trouble any of the Magistrates, under the pain of £50 sterling;—and he complaining that he was refused a sight of the libel, and that he could not, by a narrative they had inserted in the draught of a bond required of him, acknowledge a guilt which he denied; and that he was not bound to depone upon such injurious expressions, and so could not be holden as confessed thereon; and that the Magistrates, by their answers, had passed from the fine, and so could not now insist for it;—the Lords thought justices of the peace were not tied to the forms of other courts but in petty riots; and, for vindicating their own jurisdiction, they might proceed de piano, sine strepitu et figura judicii; and that citizens were not to be enraged against their Magistrates; and, on the other hand, they are not to be armed with too much power to oppress their burgesses. Therefore they ordained the bond to narrate his faults as a part of the decreet pronounced against him, and not as his confession; and did not allow the Magistrates to retract their offer of passing from the fine on his subscribing a bond; and restricted the penalty to £100 Scots; and, on his granting such a bond, ordained him to be set at liberty.
