(438)  73 SINGLE SURVEYS IN 6 MONTHS

 

The Scottish Executive’s pilot scheme of single sellers’ surveys (see No 378) was reported to have been used by just 73 people in 6 months on 21 February 2005.  One of these was in Edinburgh, three in Dundee and five in Inverness.  The rest were in Glasgow.  The suggestion that people should be forced to have such surveys was made by some, apparently seriously.  Scots Law News understands that one way well-advised buyers have been avoiding having to pay for multiple surveys before finally achieving a purchase is making offers subject to survey”

(392)  ROBBIE THE PICT: THE TOLL IS FOR THEE

Robbie the Pict’s latest contribution to the gaiety of nations and Scottish jurisprudence was a claim before Sheriff Principal Sir Stephen Young QC at Dingwall, in yet another Skye Bridge toll case, that he (Robbie) was entitled to the benefit of a charter given by King William the Lion in the 12th century granting the burgesses of Inverness immunity from toll throughout the kingdom, and this meant that he was free from any liability to pay the Skye Bridge toll.  Giving judgement on 27 August 2004, the Sheriff Principal found against Robbie after a lengthy discussion of the meaning and application of the charter in question.  The competing arguments were summarised as follows:

Counsel submitted that the accused

(358)  FRASER INQUIRY ENDS: THE BLAME GAME BEGINS

The Fraser Inquiry into the Scottish Parliament building project at Holyrood concluded its proceedings after 43 days of evidence with legal submissions on 25 and 26 May 2004.  Everyone blamed everyone else and took no responsibility.  Counsel to the inquiry John Campbell QC took the comprehensive view that everyone involved in the project was to blame for a management failure of gigantic proportions”.  Lord Fraser now retires to his study to consider his verdict

(322)  CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM BILL PUBLISHED

 

The Constitutional Reform Bill, which includes the proposals for a Supreme Court, was published by the Department of Constitutional Affairs on 25 February 2004, and will receive its Second Reading in the House of Lords on 8 March.  The Bill can be read on the DCAf website,

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200304/ldbills/030/2004030.htm. 

 

The Supreme Court, we are told, will be a superior court of record” (but

(251)  A BARRA PRESENT FOR THE NATION

The Chief of the Clan Macneil has offered the ancestral island of Barra to the Scottish Executive with all mineral and fishing rights, subject to the condition that ownership will pass to the islanders at no cost should they in future decide that they wish to pursue this path.  The island has a population of around 1300 people, with over 400 crofts and two quarries.  The Chief, Ian Macneil, is a former professor at US law schools, and became famous in academic legal circles for his work on relational contracts” and “the new social contract”

(124)  Extending diminished responsibility: battered women

On 18 July 2001 a Court of Five Judges extended the doctrine of diminished responsibility in murder cases, taking it beyond the previously established position in which such a claim required a state of mind bordering on insanity or some form of mental disease.  The Court held that this definition was too narrow, and that diminished responsibility might also arise from abnormality of mind” arising

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