Category: Scots law

The elusive Scots law basics course?

I think that (thanks to the Scottish Legal Newsletter) I may have found the training course I’ve been looking for!

“An introduction to law in contemporary Scotland” from the Open University looks like it’ll cover the basics well enough…it might not go into the further depth I’d like, but it’s a pretty good start!

This course looks at law making in contemporary Scotland and introduces you to some specific areas of Scots law including the law relating to employment and to children. It considers the role of both the Scottish Parliament and Courts in law making. The course will be of particular interest to anyone who wants an overview of how the legal system in Scotland operates and will provide an excellent beginning to students who want to understand how modern Scotland works.

Law and printing in Scotland – an exhibition



I was asked to email this out to members of the SLLG last week, and thought it was interesting enough to share:


The Advocates Library’s exhibition highlighting the link between the Scottish printing trade and the practice of law in Scotland will be on show in Parliament Hall, Edinburgh, from 11 August until 27 September 2008, Monday to Friday, 9am until 4.30pm. 
With the kind permission of the Lord President, the exhibition will be open to the public and will form part of the Scottish Courts programme of events in Parliament House for Doors Open Day, 27th September 2008. 
Examples from the library’s unique 18th century collections of printed Session Papers will be displayed in addition to other items from the Library’s extensive collections.  Session Papers are documents used in the presentation of cases in the Court of Session, Scotland’s supreme civil court.  The papers often include non-legal documentary exhibits such as drawings, plans and maps.  As such, the papers give a valuable insight into the social, economic, political and legal history of Scotland, during the period of the Scottish Enlightenment, many of the notable figures of which were advocates, like James Boswell and Walter Scott.
Early collections of Scottish Acts and laws from the time of the first Scottish parliament illustrate the importance of printing to the practice of law. 
The Advocates Library, inaugurated in 1689, had the right of legal deposit until the formation of the National Library of Scotland in 1925.  At that time, the Faculty of Advocates donated its non-legal collections to the nation.  This long history and their close connection with the courts meant that advocates and the Advocates Library provided much work for the printing industry.  The exhibition highlights the closeness of this link, telling the story of Thomas Ruddiman who was Keeper of the Advocates Library and a printer.

Any parties of over 20 people wishing to view the exhibition should arrange their visit in advance with Andrea Longson, Senior Librarian, Tel. 0131 260 5637, email andrea.longson AT advocates.org.uk.

SWOP meeting: "From Parliament Square to Holyrood – historical official publications online"

Belatedly writing up the SWOP meeting, which I posted info about here. Links to available presentations here.

This turned out to be a really useful and interesting event, even though it may have been aimed more at academics and researchers than anything else (it was only me and someone from a Council who weren’t academic staff).

  • “Parliament’s past online : a review of sources” Paul Seaward Director – History of Parliament Trust.

This part was full of interesting historical information, and background on UK Parliamentary materials development e.g House of Lords and House of Commons records were stored in different buildings, so a fire in 1834 that destroyed HofC records prior to that date had no effect on HofL records. Parliament Rolls and Statute Rolls are separate. Parliament Rolls of Medieval England (subscription service) and BOPCRIS (an HE and FE academics access only site). So, there’s sources, but you have to be an academic to view them, from the looks of it!

  • “From archive to internet: producing an online edition of the records of the pre 1707 Scottish Parliament” Gillian MacIntosh St Andrews University

A review of the background to the development of the Records of the Parliament of Scotland online. Highlighting the lovely option for parallel translations from old Scots, that can be viewed alongside their modern English translations. Noting that there’s now a citeable reference style for the old Acts (eg [1604/4/22], denoting year, month and number of the Acts), and original sources are given, unlike the previous printed edition, which is now known to be inaccurate and suffered from the editors personal bias!

  • “Prototyping Hansard” Robert Brook, UK Parliament

An un-official, ad-hoc project, working with the raw Hansard data and reusing it in various ways. It’s a very basic, non-prettified version of a website, but it allows users to search on tagged items to find all sorts of information on them, eg, by member name like Tam Dalyell. They specifically don’t work with the most current data, stopping at 2004.

I have to confess to tuning out slightly for the following presentations:

  • “Online Historical Population reports” Matthew Woollard – Project Director, Online Historical Reports Project.
  • “Digitisation of Parliamentary Texts at BOPCRIS” Dr Julian Ball, Project Manager, BOPCRIS
  • “ProQuest Parliamentary Papers” Rob Newman, Senior Editor, Proquest CSA

These were very definitely aimed at the academic sector, and researchers of population / history, and therefore not of particular use to me.

But overall, definitely an afternoon well spent – I have a far better understanding of where the historical parliamentary materials came from, why there’s gaps, why the printed collected Scottish Acts are unreliable, and now know about a funky online tool to play with Hansard! 😀

For all those Naked Rambler hunters

Yes, it is one of the top searches / hits for this blog (although I’m worried about the ones that are looking for images!).
And yes, there was meant to be a review hearing earlier this year, of which I can find nothing.
But the Scots Law News has found more information.

It’s good to see that my suggestion of an English border-drop was taken seriously 😉