Commissioners of Supply cannot hold a meeting to make division of an heritor's valuation, &c. unless they are summoned, in terms of law, by the convener, on the day appointed by the act, or on another day by adjournment.
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By a Michaelmas meeting of the freeholders of the county of Banff, the defender was enrolled in the roll of electors for that county.
The pursuer, one of the freeholders, complained; and objected, That the freeholders had enrolled the defender without legal evidence of his valued rent; for that the division of the valued rent of certain parcels of his lands from that of some lands belonging to another freeholder, had not been made by a legal meeting of the Commissioners of Supply, but only by a private meeting of four Commissioners, not summoned in terms of law. At advising this cause, though no iniquity was alleged in the division of the valuation made by the Commissioners, yet the Court was very clear, that, by the act of the convention of the estates 1687, the act 1690, William and Mary, sess. 2. cap. 6., and the other acts touching the supply, the meetings of the Commissioners must be either upon the day mentioned in the act of Parliament, or by adjournment, or when summoned by the convener. Now, as the meeting of the Commissioners was not summoned in any of these ways, it must be illegal; for when law appoints how a meeting is to be called, it must be called in that way, else it is not a legal meeting, and its acts are void.
‘The Lords found the valuation not divided in terms of law; and ordained William Leslie to be expunged from the roll of freeholders.’
Act. A. Lockhart et R. Craigie.Alt. J. Ferguson et Advocatus.Clerk, Kirkpatrick.
Fol. Dic. v. 3. p. 136. Fac. Col. No 68. p. 102.
