Legal Nationalism:Lord Cooper, Legal History and Comparative Law

Considers the linkages between Lord Cooper's analysis of Scottish legal history and his view of the importance of comparative law for modern Scots law development

Debatable land: an essay on the relationship between English and Scottish criminal law

This article proposes that a better understanding of the identity of Scots criminal law can be developed through an analysis of the similarities between English and Scots law rather than by concentrating on the differences. It argues that historically there are striking similarities between the two laws which have been overlooked or ignoredfor various reasons. It goes on to argue that many ofthe current differences between the two laws can be explained in terms of contemporary academic and institutional conditions, and that these offer a betterfoundation on which to construct a principled theoretical understanding of Scots criminal law

Introduction

Traces the history of Bell's Dictionary and Digest from its first author through its subsequent editors, placing the only dictionary of Scots law in its wider international context

Custom in context : Medieval and Early Modern Scotland and England

Studying custom and its context gives unique insights into relations of property, production and law in a society. The first part of the article discusses meaning in Scotland, focusing on ‘custom as normative practice, custom as unwritten law, and custom in opposition to law’. The second seeks to demonstrate (using evidence focusing principally on landholding) that custom as legal currency was more restricted for Scots than English. The third sets out the implications for continuity of landholding and for agrarian change in the Highlands of Scotland, an area where custom might be thought strong. The fourth deals with the differential legal development of Scotland and England between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries and its effects on social and tenurial relationships. A final section suggests why custom mattered more as a resource to the English, the domains in which it was important to Scots and the implications for understanding the comparative development of the two societies since the Middle Ages.PostprintPeer reviewe

Scots law: a system in search of a family?

Presented as a paper at the Irish Association of Comparative Law, this article looks at the classification of legal systems into families and examines where, among the many different models, Scots law fits in

Before bell: the roots of error in the Scots law of contract

An examination of the development of the doctrine of error in Scots contract law focusing on the connections between Scottish and Continental European thinking on the subject

Public ceremony and private belief: the role of religion in the Scots law of marriage

Historically, religion has played an important role in the legal regulation of marriage in Scotland, with canon law prior to 1560 governing the personal aspects of marriage: formation of marriage, capacity to marry and issues relating to nullity. Following the Reformation in 1560, the control of the Roman Catholic church over marriage was abolished to be replaced in 1563 by the Commissary Court which took over responsibility for all actions arising from marriage. Throughout this period the rules and principles of the canon law continued to be applied "except in so far as altered by statute or inconsistent with the reformed religion" and, therefore, although the Church no longer had direct control over family law, its influence to some extent continued. The 20th Century, a period of substantial statutory reform, brought more radical reforms of Scots family law with marriage becoming increasingly secularised and nowhere is this more evident than in the Marriage (Scotland) Act of 1939 which introduced civil marriage as an alternative form of regular marriage. Since 1940, Scots law has permitted the constitution of regular marriage by either civil or religious ceremony, with the system being further modernised by the Marriage (Scotland) Act 1977. Not only have the legal ties between religion and marriage been loosened, but also religious influence on the traditional roles of husband and wife has decreased in the face of developing economic equality between men and women and growing social acceptance of unmarried cohabitation and children born out of wedlock. In recent years and, in keeping with the general decline in church attendance and formal religious affiliation in Scottish society, it might have been expected that there would have been further steady decline in the influence of religion in legal marriage. Although as a general trend the connections between the secular and the religious have weakened, analysis of some recent developments highlights their ongoing and at times uneasy relationship within the legal context of marriage

Scots law and the UK codification of bills of exchange

No abstract available

Reform of assignation in security: lessons from The Netherlands

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