Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE, LORD HAILES.
Subject_2 JURISDICTION.
Subject_3 Power of Review inherent in the Court of Session not excluded by the Comprehending Act.

David Pattillo, Suspender
v.
Sir William Maxwell and Others

Date: 25 June 1779

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[Dictionary, 7386.]

Covington. The commissioners do not specify the grounds of their sentence.

Hailes. I formerly doubted, and I still doubt of that incontrollable Parliamentary power vested in the commissioners; but although we should hold that, in matters of opinion, their judgment cannot be reviewed, yet in matters of mathematical demonstration it may: and if they choose to find that a person falls under the statute, who demonstratively does not, I cannot suppose that they act under the statute,—their decree cannot make a man taller or younger than the statute requires.

Gardenston. Approved of the distinction between judgments in matters of opinion and judgments in matters of demonstration.

Justice-Clerk. The suspender must show that he does not fall under the statute.

President. It is dangerous to limit legal remedies: he who applies by suspension, must verify his reasons; but he cannot verify them while he remains a prisoner.

On the 25th June 1779, “The Lords remitted to the Lord Ordinary to pass the bill;” altering Lord Ankerville's interlocutor.

Act. A. Crosbie. Alt. J. M'Laurin.

N. B.—Lord Ankerville gave judgment, contrary to his own opinion, in consequence of what he understood to have been the sense of the Court in other cases.