(398)  BARON COURT OF PRESTOUNGRANGE ON THE ABOLITION OF FEUDALISM

The Baron Court of Prestoungrange has published on the Internet an opinion of the court on the question of what jurisdiction it will have after the abolition of feudalism on 28 November 2004.  Interested readers are referred to http://www.dynastic-law.com/scot.html.  The opinion argues, with much reference to learned authorities such as Craig’s Jus Feudale and Sir Thomas Innes of Learney (former Lord Lyon) that the essence of baronial jurisdiction lies in its patriarchal origins and that this is unaffected by the abolition legislation; that the Baron  Court  was  far  more  linked  to  social,  economic,  cooperative,  and  ceremonial  family-related  functions  than  it  was  to  exercise  of  actual  criminal  and  civil  judicial  functions  because  such  Baron  Courts  were  the ‘peaceful  self-governing  social  unit’  of  local  baronies; and that the primary  non-judicial  function  as  the  operational  mechanism  of  the  territorial  or  ‘horizontal’  baronial  clan  formed  about  that  barony therefore will continue.