Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION. Collected by JAMES BURNETT, LORD MONBODDO.
Subject_2 MONBODDO.

Sutherland
v.
Sutherland

Date: 12 February 1751

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[Elch. Nos. 52 and 53, Member of Parliament.]

The Lords found, That commissioners acting without taking the oaths, their acts are null and void, though the act appoints a penalty, et quando lex pænam statuit pæna contenta est. Dissent. Elchies.

This, it is thought, they determined, to avoid a more difficult question, viz. Whether the Court of Session has power to review a division of valuation made by the Commissioners of Supply? (Vide June 21, 1750.)

Elchies said he thought the Court had no jurisdiction, and the President declared the same opinion when the case came first before them ; but, in a case which was determined the next day from the shire of Sutherland, the Lords found, That the Commissioners of Supply, their decreets of division of valuations may be reviewed by the Court of Session ; for they considered a man's valuation as a matter of civil right and property, upon which not only his paying of cess and voting for a Commissioner to Parliament depended, but also his share in any commonty to which he had a right, as also his proportion of parish burdens, such as maintaining the poor, repairing kirks and manses; and they thought the Commissioners acted no more as a Committee of Parliament in the division of a valuation than in the choice of a collector ; which last exercise of their power is undoubtedly subject to the review of this Court. They were much moved also by the consequences if it were otherwise, for, as the Commissioners could not only make new divisions, but rectify old, nobody that stood upon the roll was safe, and every regulation for security of the constitution in that point would signify nothing: Dissent. Elchies tantum ; President not judging.