William Grierson of Bargaton, Supplicant, v. The Magistrates of Dumfries
Date: 2 February 1713 Case No. No 120.
Magistrates are obliged either to modify an aliment to a prisoner for debt, payable by the persons who incarcerated him, or to aliment him themselves so long as they detain him in prison.
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Upon advising a supplication presented by William Grierson, craving an order to the Magistrates of Dumfries, either to let him at liberty out of their prison, where he lay incarcerated at the instance of John Kennan, bailie, and John Rae, merchant in the said burgh, or to modify an aliment to him, payable by the said John Kennan and John Rae, and take security for the same in the terms of the act 32d Par. 1696; the Lords ordained the Magistrates, either to modify an aliment to the prisoner, payable by the persons who did incarcerate him, or to aliment him themselves. For the Lords thought, That magistrates had not, by the said act of Parliament, a discretionary power to liberate or detain as they thought fit, a prisoner, whom the creditor or person at whose instance he was committed to prison declines to aliment, but behoved either to aliment such prisoner themselves, or let him go free.
