Scottish Court of Session Decisions

This is a suspension of an assessment sought to be levied from the complainers as owners of the harbour of Pulteneytown by the Commissioners of Supply for the county of Caithness, in virtue of the powers conferred by 20 and 21 Vict., cap. 72, to establish a police force in the county. The ground of suspension was that under various private Acts under which the complainers are incorporated, they had the power to appoint, and had in point of fact appointed, police constables of their own. But neither the private Acts nor the public Act conferred any exemption on the complainers from the assessment complained of, and the Lord Ordinary (Jerviswoode) refused the suspension, there being no presumption in favour of special pleas of exemption from taxation. He was unable to observe any statutory provision adequate to secure the exemption claimed. It might be that under this view the complainers were more heavily burdened as respects the matter of police than others around them; but the local causes, the existence of

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which has led the Legislature to confer special powers on the complainers to keep up a constabulary of their own within certain limits, may be such as not, even in equity, to lead to the conclusion that they ought in consequence to be exempted from the more general county assessment.

The suspenders reclaimed; but the Court to-day, without calling for a reply, adhered.