Scottish Court of Session Decisions

The following special case was stated in this peal:—“At a Registration Court for the county

Page: 105↓

of Wigtown, held by me at Stranraer on the 1st day of October 1868, under and in virtue of said Act, and the other Statutes therein recited, Hugh Maclean, writer, Stranraer, agent for Thomas M'Master, farmer, Eephad, Inch, a voter on the roll, objected to John Stuart Bray, Kirkcolm village, being entered on the roll as a voter for the said county. The said John Stuart Bray stood enrolled by the assessor as a voter as tenant and occupant of dwelling-house and piece of ground, Kirkcolm village, and Knockcoyd Fey.

It was objected for the said John Stuart Bray by Mr Charles Scott, his counsel, that the notice of objection was informal, insufficient, and not in terms of the Statute, in respect it was not signed by Thomas M'Master, the objector himself, but only by a procurator of court, holding a general mandate to object to ‘all and sundry persons whom he might consider objectionable being entered or retained on the register of voters for the county,’ and no special mandate to object to the said John Stuart Bray.

Which objection to the said notice of objection I repelled, and the said Charles Scott, on behalf of said John Stuart Bray, appealed against my judgment, and craved a special case for the Court of Appeal.

I then proceeded to take the evidence of B. S. Forbes, the assessor for the county of Wigtown, and that of the said John Stuart Bray, and found it proved that the said John Stuart Bray was a tenant paying the following rents:—

1.	For a dwelling-house in Kirkcolm village,	£8	0	0
2.	Fora piece of land, named Knock coyd Fey,	5	0	0
3.	Of rent, by way of interest on improvements of said piece of land,	1	7	0
		£14	7	0

It was proved that the said sum of £1, 7s. had been paid for the first time in 1868 for the year ending Whitsunday 1868, but did not appear in the return of the landlord's factor to the assessor as for the year from Whitsunday 1867 to Whitsunday 1868. The said John Stuart Bray appears in the valuation roll for 1867–8 as tenant and occupant of subjects of the value of £13, and in that of 1868–9 as tenant and occupant of subjects of the value of £14, 7s., and I sustained the objection. Whereupon a special case was required from me by Mr Bray's counsel, and in compliance therewith I have granted this case.

The questions of law for the decision of the Court of Appeal are—(1) Is the said notice of objection sufficient? (2) Is the valuation roll sufficient to exclude the claimant's right to be registered?”

The Court reversed and admitted.