SketcJies from the Parliament House. the doctrine of legitimation per subseguens matrimoniutn. Rcgiam majcstatem, — the Institute of pre- Reformation Scots law -— copying the English Statute of Mertou, declares that "albeit the child, gotten and borne as said is, be the common civill law of the Romans ... is lawful, nevertheless conforme to the law of this realme, he may nae waies be suffred or heard to claim anie heritage as lawfull heire." By the end of the seventeenth century, Scots law had ceased to respect its English model, and we find Lord Bankton saying (i. 121) that " when a man owns himself father of a child be gotten out of lawful wedlock, and thereafter marries the mother, this is a legitimation of the child to all effects as if it had been lawfully begotten." The last illustration, that we will give, of the influence of France upon the law of Scotland shall be a rapid survey of the points of historical resem blance between the Supreme Courts of the two countries. Each bore the venerable name of Parliament.1 Each had its chan cellor, its president, its dean (Fr. doyen), its advocates and procurators, its extraordinary lords (Fr. pairs). In each the clerical ele ment was important, the judges being chosen in equal numbers from the spiritual and tem poral sides. Each was stationary (sedentairc). In each the judges were subjected to preliminary examination. A new Scotch judge has still to hear certain "trial" cases before the solemnity of his elevation is com plete. The Scots Acts of Sederunt, or rules made by the Court of Session under statu tory authority, have an analogue in the French arrets. The privileges of the French and the Scotch bars were practically iden tical, and the procedure in the Court of Ses sion was in various respects akin to that in the Parlement de Paris. The external facts in the history of the 1 Parliament House (Edinburgh) and Parlement de Paris. The Supreme Court of Scotland is also called "The Court of Session" and "The College of Justice." It was expressly modelled by James V., after the Parle ment de Paris.
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Parliament House were as follows : Modelled by James V., after the Parlement de Paris, it was formally recognized in an Act of 1537 (c. 36). Its judges, who are called senators, were at first fifteen in number. The Statute 11 Geo. IV. and 1 Will. IV., c. 60, § 20, reduced them to thirteen. The Court of Session, as at present constituted, consists of two Chambers, the Inner and the Outer House. The former is subdivided into the "First Division " and the " Second Division," which exercise a concurrent appellate juris diction over the Outer House. The latter contains five courts, each of which is pre sided over by a " Lord Ordinary." The re maining judges aie divided between the two courts in the Inner House. At the head of the " First Division " is the " Lord Presi dent," who is styled "Lord Justice Gen eral " in his capacity of chief member of the Supreme Criminal Court, " the High Court of Justiciary." The preses of the "Second Division " is the " Lord Justice Clerk."1 In Henry Cockburn's " Memorials of his own Time," the judicial life of Scotland in the eighteenth century is vividly portrayed. A few anecdotes from this interesting auto biography may entertain our readers, and form a fitting prelude to a series of " Sketches from the Parliament House " of to-day : The "head" of the Scottish Bench in the eighteenth century was Braxfield, a man as able and as brutal as Jeffreys himself. " Let them bring me prisoners," said this judicial savage during the famous seditious trials of 1793, "and I 'll find them law," and he kept his word. One poor wretch, accused of no other or worse crime than innovation, al leged by way of defence that " our Saviour was a reformer." " Muckle he made of it," Braxfield retorted; " he was hangit." Lord Eskgrove was more humane than Braxfield, but incorrigibly pedantic and stupid. On one occasion he was condemning a tailor to death for having stabbed a soldier. His lordship thus enumerated the aggravating circum1 Cf. Law Journal, August 23, 1890.
