Scottish Court of Session Decisions

In this action of declarator of marriage, the defenders, who are the representatives of Stewart Sceales, to whom the pursuer says she was married by habit and repute, made a motion to the Lord Ordinary (Ormidale) to ordain the pursuer to be judicially examined before fixing any diet for proof. The Lord Ordinary refused the motion,

Page: 213↓

holding that the circumstances of the case were not such as to justify a departure from the ordinary practice, and appointed the proof in the cause to be led before him on the 13th of March. To-day the Court, after hearing Mr Munro in support of a reclaiming note for the defenders, unanimously adhered, the Lord Justice-Clerk observing that the judicial examination of a party, in all cases a proceeding of extreme delicacy, was particularly so in consistorial causes, and should not be adopted except in circumstances of a very special nature. No such circumstances had been stated in the present case; and, moreover, he was not aware that that proceeding had ever been followed in a proof of marriage by habit and repute.