Subject_1 MEMBER of PARLIAMENT. Subject_2 DIVISION V.
Procedure in the Court of Freeholders.
Subject_3 SECT. III.
Powers of the Court of Freeholders.
Lord Alva v. Freeholders of Stirlingshire
1790. Case No. No 232.
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In the case of Lord Alva, which occurred at the election 1790, for Stirling-shire, the same point occurred as in the case of Nisbet, No 231. supra; but it became unnecessary to decide upon it. His Lordship's charter was not lost, but in the hands of a freeholder in the opposite interest, and who refused to deliver it up. His Lordship, however, produced an extract of it from Chancery, and a notorial copy of an entry in the books of the keeper of the Great Seal, bearing the fees of it to have been paid; also referred to the minutes of enrolment of a liferent-voter in 1766, which bore production of that very charter; and even an extract of his Lordship's sasine, produced by his opponent in support of another objection, certified, that a charter, complete in all its parts, was exhibited at taking the infeftment. This was as strong a case as could well be figured, as the verity of the sasine could hardly be questioned by him who had produced it in support of an objection. Still, however, as law requires a charter to be produced as a claimant's title before the freeholders, none of these adminicles, or extraneous proofs, which have been mentioned, will supply its place, however decisive they might, and certainly would be, in an action of proving the tenor *. See Appendix.
Fol. Dic. v. 3. p. 431. Supplement to Wight, p. 65.
* There is one inconvenience resulting from the doctrine, that an extract of a charter cannot supply the place of the original. In consequence of the statute 1672, there can be no proper extract taken from the office of the Great Seal, where the ultimate step is taken, as it is not a proper place of record. The books are never given up by the keepers or their representatives to their successors in office, nor transmitted to the general register-house, under the charge of the Lord Register and his deputies, along with the other public records of the kingdom, and the records of Chancery in particular; from which extracts are daily taken, signed by a principal Clerk of Session. It must often be very difficult, therefore, to get at the books of the Great Seal, at least if far back. Indeed it is said, that no other books are kept by those officers, except a minute-book, and copies of the charters as sent by the writers to the signet, along with the principal charters for sealing. In these circumstances, there can be no remedy but that of proving the tenor. This evil seems to require a cure, by appointing a proper record at the Great Seal-office, or otherwise.
