Scottish Court of Session Decisions

The following special case was stated by the Sheriff:—“At a Registration Court for the burgh of New Galloway, held by me at New Galloway on the 3d day of October 1868, under and in virtue of the Act of Parliament 31 and 32 Vict., cap, 48, intituled ‘The Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868,’ and the other Statutes therein recited, Alexander Seaton, farm servant, claimed to be enrolled on the register of voters for the said burgh, as inhabitant occupier, as tenant of dwelling-house High Street, New Galloway.

The following facts were proved: the claimant has for the requisite period been an inhabitant occupier, as tenant of a dwelling-house within this burgh at less than £4 of a yearly rent. This dwelling-house consists of two rooms, to which access is had by a door in one side of a passage leading from the street to background; on the opposite aide of the passage is a dwelling-house, occupied by another tenant, also consisting of two rooms, and to which the access is by a door in that side of the passage. Both houses are parts of a building having one roof and two main gables, belonging to the same proprietor. Each house is separated from the passage by a partition wall, and the occupant of the one house has no right of access to or connection with the other. The claimant has never paid nor been assessed for poor-rates. The whole poor-rates for last year, ending Whitsunday 1868, and previous years, as well tenant's as owner's proportion, have been assessed on the owner of the house, and been paid by him.

Adam Corrie, bank-agent, New Galloway, a voter on the roll, objected to the said claim, on the ground that, first, The said house occupied by the claimant is not a dwelling-house within the meaning of sec. 3 of ‘The Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868,’ but is only part of a house, occupied as a separate dwelling, to which sec. 59 of the same is applicable; and, second, That the claimant not being rated to the relief of the poor either in respect thereof or as an inhabitant of the parish, he is not entitled to be registered.

I admitted the claim; whereupon the said Adam Corrie required from me a special case for the Court of Appeal, and in compliance therewith I have granted this case.

The questions of law for the decision of the Court of Appeal are, first, Whether the said house is not a dwelling-house in the sense and meaning of sec. 3 of the Statute, but only part of a house occupied as a separate dwelling? and second, Whether, in respect thereof, and of the claimant not having been separately rated to the relief of the poor, the said 59th sec. of the Statute is sufficient to exclude his claim to be registered as a voter?”

Shand said that all cases of part-houses in the Wigtown burghs were verbatim the same. There was not a word of difference in the description, and he thought this case had been already decided by the part-house not rated in the Kirkwall case.

Scott said the case was completely different to any of the cases their Lordships had heard. The special case found that the claimant had from the requisite period been tenant of a dwelling-house, and this was very important. The dwelling-house consisted of two rooms. The objection was that it was not a dwelling-house under sec. 3 of the Act; but the Sheriff had found that it was. Sec. 3 was plain and distinct, the words being “any dwelling-house“—a house within which a man dwelt. When they said it was not a dwelling-house under the 3d sec. they must go to sec. 59, and put an artificial meaning upon the word dwelling-house. This latter section rather enlarged the meaning of the word dwelling-house, calling it any part of a house occupied as a separate dwelling, or the occupant o which was separately rated to the poor.