Talk:Court of Session

Broken and misdirected links

Took out some broken links and other ones that didn't make any sense. Whispering 04:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Title "Lady of Council and Session"

On the web, I found this title only in WP or in WP clones, is the phrase "Lady of Council and Session" really used? Apokrif 20:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Lord of Council and Session is, I believe, used; so Lady presumably is, for those judges who are female. I'll have a look in some secondary sources shortly. AGK 12:51, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

B class? No way!

As the founder of WikiProject Scotland I have been rating articles for a long time, and I am very sorry, but even after the recent expansion this article is still a million miles away from meeting the B-class criteria. IMHO it is borderline Start/C. The History section especially is utterly lamentable - this institution has nearly 500 years of history under its belt, yet Wikipedia can only find two lousy sentences to say about its history (with just one ref). If it wasn't so sad it would be almost funny.

As a compromise I will re-rate it to C, but please note that such incomplete articles really ought not to recieve C ratings.

The Good Article nomination is way too early. --Mais oui! (talk) 13:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• C-class it is, then. B probably was much too generous. What secondary sources I have in my own collection that discuss the court do not go into its history in great depth, so I've been able to add little to that section. Actually, they deal primarily with the court's structure and the influence of precedent established in the court, so the only thing I could add to the history section is "The structure and influence of the court has changed little since its foundation"—which is specifically a lack of history! AGK 01:17, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Google books has a copyright-expired book "The practice of the Court of Session: on the basis of the late Mr. Darling's work of 1833" that may be worth a read. It was published in 1848 so it is quite out of date, but that is probably more of a help than a hindrance for expanding the history section. Road Wizard (talk) 20:17, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Court of Session/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Pyrotec (talk) 15:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Starting review. Pyrotec (talk) 15:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Initial comments

I have now read this article at least three times. I'm not convinced that it is a Good Article, yet; I'm fairly certain that it is not a Good Article.

• On the positive side, the article appears to be well referenced (I've not yet checked them, hence the caveat "appears"), it is illustrated, has an impressive suite of Infoboxes, navigation templates and links to other other articles.
• The negative side, having read this article, I'm not sure whether the article provides any information about the Court of Sesssion and what it does, other than there is a section of "potted history". OK, so I now know about its history, but "so what" is the question that springs to mind. Furthermore, each time I read the article I end up with more questions, which the article does not answer, and less and less information.

• Rather than failing this article straight out, I will review it section by section, but leaving the WP:Lead until last. If the article can be brought upto to standard in a reasonable time frame, then I will proceed. Pyrotec (talk) 15:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• History -

• The first paragraph contains the "weasle" phrase "previously been part of ...". Why not just answer the unstated question(s), when was it formed, or how long was it in existence?

• The answer can be found in ref 16; but I'm not sure that it provides any reference of what is claimed in this paragraph. Pyrotec (talk) 20:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

• "The Lord Chancellor of Scotland was to preside over the court, which was to be composed of fifteen lords appointed from the King’s Council.[13] Seven of the lords had to be churchmen, while another seven had to be laymen." - I assume this means fifteen Lords, including the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, otherwise 7 + 7 = 14, not 15.

There were 14 lords, a president of the court and the Lord Chancellor for a total of 16. Sources say 7 had to be clergy, 7 had to be non-clergy and does not specify if the president had to be one or the other. I will try to come up with a better wording. Road Wizard (talk) 18:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

•  Done Pyrotec (talk) 20:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC). Second paragraph, what was the outcome of the 1640 act baning churchmen? HINT: Fourteen Lords or seven Lords?

• I checked the ref (and added a link) - the whole was to come from temporall. Pyrotec (talk) 20:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

• So we have 14 or 15 of these Lords, according to this section, but the Summary box states 34 positions. Which seems to imply this article is lacking information on 19 positions.

This will take a lot more work. The numbers do not appear to be fixed. I have sources that say the number was 15 in 1800 but dropped to 13 around 1830. I was trying to track down details of when the numbers rose again before inserting an incomplete description into the article. Road Wizard (talk) 18:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I have made a bit of progress on this. The number of judges was set at 24 by the Court of Session Act 1988 and increased to 32 in November 1999. I will need to track when it increased to 34 and also try to quantify any changes between 1830 and 1988. I will put something into the article after I get back from work this evening. Road Wizard (talk) 01:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Excellent work. Thanks for the progress report. Pyrotec (talk) 19:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Ref 5 indicates that the Outer Court consists of 24 Lords and the Inner Court consists of a 1st and 2nd Division of five Lords each. Pyrotec (talk) 20:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

• The wikilink layman, unfortunately, leads to Laity, who are members of religous organisations, but who are not priests. Was this wikilink ever checked?

A layman^(wikt) is a person who is not an expert on a subject or someone who is not a member of the clergy. The article layman covers the first sense and includes a hatnote to laity to describe the second. There were 7 judges who were clergy and 7 who were not clergy (described in sources as "laymen"). Rather than link to the incorrect term I dabbed it straight to laity. I am not sure how else to handle it, but I would welcome suggestions if you have them. Road Wizard (talk) 18:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• Ref 17 is a 1600 page book, in two volumes. You need to provide a page number, or page numbers (and I suspect a volume number). Pyrotec (talk) 20:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

• Structure -

• OK, so we have two houses, Lords Ordinary sit in one on their own, Lords of Council and Session sit in the other in threes. The article fails to explain what the difference between those two groups of Lords: obvious questions not answered, are these Lords interchangeable between Ordinary and Council and Session and if not how do they get promoted/demoted to move to the other?
• Another "weasle" phrase "practically exclusive rights" of audience in the court. Either they have exclusive rights or they don't. If they don't who else has rights?
• This "practically exclusive rights" is unreferenced, and so is not compliant with WP:Verify.

• • Outer House -

• First Instance, wiklinked in the WP:Lead, takes me to Trial court which is exclusively about US courts. It's useful to have the link, but it does raise doubts as to whether it is applicable here.
• The next bit is vague. The Introduction to Structure already states that Lords Ordinary sit on their own, so what does "They sit singly, sometimes with a jury of twelve in personal injury and defamation actions"? There are several possible interpretations: the court only deals with personal injury and defamation actions, juries may or may not sit in personal injury and defamation actions, Lords Ordinary might not sit singly in other trials.

• A: I need to research what the books say about the others parts of your comment, but I will say now that the Lords Ordinary always sit singly. AGK 21:57, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• Subject-matter jurisdiction is exclusively about US courts, it's useful to have the link, but it does raise doubts as to whether it is applicable here.

• A: I have changed the subject-matter jurisdiction link to one to Courts of Scotland (an article discussing the Scottish court hierarchy), to avoid referencing concepts of strictly USA applicability. AGK 21:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• This subsetion contains the statement "Some classes of cases, such as intellectual property disputes, are heard by designated judges". It is the only mention of "designed judges". It is vague using "weasle phrases" "such as". What cases are heard by designated judges, do intellectual property dispute designated judges hear other cases, are there other cases of designation, etc, ?

A: Those are not weasel words. Not every instance of "such" is unacceptable. It is only fair to say that a phrase is weaseled if it attempts to obscure the fact that the attached statement is unverified. And bear in mind that many editors do not appreciate being told that they are trying to skirt Wikipedia policy by using weasel words. A simple "This phrase is too vague" should suffice :-).

To respond to the point itself: the sentence is stating that cases which deal with certain types of law are allocated only to specialist judges, but otherwise that any judge may take any case. Do you think that the sentence could be better worded? If so, I'd be happy to improve it. AGK 22:02, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I looked at Weasel word, it does not appear to mention "trying to skirt Wikipedia policy", but I have no objection to the phrase "This phrase is too vague". Pyrotec (talk) 17:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The first sentence of Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words is "Weasel words are phrases that are evasive, ambiguous or misleading." My thinking was that being evasive, ambiguous, or misleading is against our policies on how encyclopedia articles should read and how contributors should behave. AGK 19:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

.... stopping at this point. Pyrotec (talk) 16:40, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comprehensive review; I had not identified most of the issues you raised so it will be a good guide to base the article development on.

I only started investigating the topic after the article was nominated and I think a lot more needs to go in before it reaches GA. I will focus on the history section for now and hopefully the nominator will be interested in working on the more recent changes and structure. I doubt that everything will be sorted by the time the review period closes, but it should see us in good stead for a renomination in the future. Road Wizard (talk) 18:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• You have my thanks too, for the review. The issues you raise are important, but not so numerous as to rule this article out as a GA. Perhaps you could put it on hold for a couple of weeks, whilst we address the problems you raised in your review, and to allow me to access some of the secondary sources that were suggested elsewhere? Regards, AGK 21:43, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for both sets of positive comments. I will be adding further comments tomorrow, I'm only half way through my Initial review, and at that point I will probably put the article review On Hold. The problem, as I see it, is that "Scope of the article" needs fleshing out. Pyrotec (talk) 21:55, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

.... further comments. Pyrotec (talk) 22:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• You appear to have two "technical terms" which are not wikilinked or otherwise explained in the article: Final judgements and procedural judgments. The wikipedia article "Final judgement" is redirect to Last Judgment which I suspect is not what this court does.

• Inner House -

• You have a latin "technical term" which is not wikilinked or otherwise explained in the article: nobile officium. Well, I think the following sentence is trying to say that the Court of Session does nobile officium trials (what ever that is) for civil law and the High Court of Justiciary does it for Criminal law ( I will come back to this later). Pyrotec (talk) 22:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

•  Done Pyrotec (talk) 19:03, 19 November 2009 (UTC). The second paragraph uses the title Senators which has not been used since the WP:lead and they sit of panels of at least three, Structure says "typically in threes". These comments are quite close, is there a reason for the change from "Lords" to "Senators" and "typically" to "at least"?

• A: Judges of the Inner House are styled Senators of the College of Justice as well as Lords of Council and Session, whereas those of the Outer House are simply Lord Ordinary or Lord [name]. That, I suppose, is the reason for the change: until that point in the article, the title "Senator" could not be used.
  As for 'typically' versus 'at least': both are correct. Inner House cases can be heard by at least three judges, but are typically heard only by three. AGK 15:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

• Function -

• The first part is a repeat of what has been stated before (probably in every section), i.e. "The primary task of the Court of Session is to decide on civil law cases, both as a court of first instance and as a court of appeal."
• There is some "history" of the Court of Exchequer for Scotland. This is not mentioned in History and whilst it is included here, there is no explanation of the topic.
• The Admiralty court and the Oath of Allegiance are merely listed here, there is no explanation of these topics.
• I'm somewhat baffled as the purpose of this section. Most of the article appears to make the assumption that readers know the difference between Civil and Criminal law, the WP:lead merely states that the court deals with Civil Law, likewise the Inner House makes the same assumption and expands on it in respect of who does what on nobile officium.

• Should this section cover the difference between Civil & Criminal Law, and if so should this section come before the detailed discussions of Civil Law in Inner and Outer Courts?
• Almost every section states "The primary task of the Court of Session is to decide on civil law cases, both as a court of first instance and as a court of appeal." Should it be expanded in this section and all the duplicates removed from elsewhere?
• The scope of this section is inadequate in respect of the coverage of Court of Exchequer (Scotland), Admiralty court and the Oath of Allegiance.

• A: There really is very little to say about those three aspects. The court is primarily one for settling matters of civil law. Those three topics are of little importance, which is why there is nothing much to add. AGK 00:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

.... to be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 22:51, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• References -

• OK, other than the comment regarding ref 5, added above to History.

• Scope -

.... to be continued. Pyrotec (talk) 21:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Overall summary

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   The history side of the article is quite strong. However, there is very little information on what the court does (other than it has two main functions); and little if any discussion of the differences in roles between this court and Sherrif courts - this is mentioned in the WP:lead.

   B. Focused:

   There is much repetition, for instance: " ... civil law cases, both as a court of first instance and as a court of appeal" is used in almost every section perhaps it needs to be explained once in more detail. In contrast there is no real mention of the differences between criminal and civil law.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   As no work has been done on the article in eleven days, I'm closing this review.

Pyrotec (talk) 13:39, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Court of Teinds

As part of the Act of Union a new court called the "Court of Teinds" was created to make certain administrative decisions for churches in Scotland (not explicitly stated in the sources but I suspect it applied to Church of Scotland matters only). The issues covered by the court appear to have involved creating new churches, setting boundaries of parishes, allocating tithes and adjusting the stipends of the clergy. The Court of Teinds shared the same judges as the Court of Session but was otherwise described as a separate court with its own clerks and officials.

The article Court of Teinds currently redirects here but there is no mention of it in this article at the moment. Should we include the topic here or place it over the redirect? Road Wizard (talk) 22:36, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

• My instinct is to say that we ought to create the article. Including it in this article would be exceeding the scope we're working within, and unduly inflate the article. AGK 23:13, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

History of the Court of Session

Hello! I noticed that there was some discussion some time ago that the history section of this article is lacking and not much action seems to have been taken. I am quite busy at the moment with other articles, but if anyone is interested this source (p. 58 onwards) has a very good discourse on the historical development of the College of Justice and the Court of Session. It is quite reliable as it is written by well respected Professors in Scotland. If anyone has the time please use! (Connolly15 (talk) 20:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC))

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