Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 MEMBER of PARLIAMENT.
Subject_2 DIVISION IV.

Decisions common to qualifications upon the old extent and valuation.
Subject_3 SECT. I.

Vassals in lands forfeited by the superior. - Fishings may be joined to lands to complete a qualification. - Proprietor pro indiviso. - Feu-duties payable out of church-lands. - Mortified lands sold. - To give a qualification there must be a feudal vassal in the lands. - Bodies corporate. - Minors. - Exchange of pieces of land. - Infeftment in virtue of a clause of union, and dispensation in a Crown charter. - Burgage lands sold by the burgh. - Where the superior is unentered. - Person divested by a trust-deed. - The claim must describe the title for enrolment. - Eldest sons of Peers. - Charter granted by a factor loco tutoris. - Roman Catholics. - Officers of the Revenue.

Freeholders of Aberdeenshire
v.
Fordyce of Monkshill

Date: 10 July 1745
Case No. No 99.

Lands, with the valuation of a fishing, making up together the full valuation, entitle to vote.

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William Fordyce of Monkshill stood upon the roll of freeholders for the county of Aberdeen, as being infeft in the town and lands of Monkshill, valued at L. 80 Scots, and in two half-nets salmon-fishing, valued at L. 347, the whole extending to L. 472.

Objected to his title; That the act 1681 restricts the title to a vote to lands of 40s. old extent, or L.400 valued rent; and the claimant has not lands to that extent or value, nor any lands contiguous to his salmon-fishing, but only a right of jactus retis.

It cannot be said every heritable right is comprehended under the term lands, nor yet every subject liable to the land-tax, as in England personal estates and offices are subject thereto, and with us feu-duties and teinds; feuduties out of church-lands would not entitle the owner to be on the roll; and the late decision concerning teinds, was in the case of a person having bought in his own teinds, by which the disburthened property came to be of greater value. See Div. 3. Sec. 1.

The payment of cess had originally nothing to do with the right of voting, having begun in the time of the troubles in the reign of King Cha. I. and at first not only teinds and filshings, but coal-works and salt-works, and all the customs and casualties of lands, and, by act of convention 1667, annualrents and tack-duties were taxed.

The persons who sat in Parliament were such as held lands of the Crown, which maintained tenants fit for military service, and not fishings.

Answered; The late statute having made no alteration concerning the subjects on which a man is entitled to be a voter, the question is determined by the practice of the nation ever since the act 1681, which has been to sustain the titles of all proprietors liable to public burdens for L. 400.

In the language of the law, lands comprehend all heritable subjects, wherein a man is infeft, as in the law of death-bed. But by the act of supply, as ordinarily past, no person can act as a commissioner unless he have lands to the amount of L. 20 per annum; and the act 12th Anne, concerning elections, says, whereas several conveyances of lands have been made for elusory sums not equal to the value of the estates, using these words as synonimous.

A gentleman who holds a fishing is as properly a freeholder as he who holds a farm, and fishers as fit for military service as tenants.

The Lords sustained the title.

Reporter, Lord Justice-Clerk. Act. Burnet. Alt. Ha. Gordon. Fol. Dic. v. 3. p. 415. D. Falconer, v. 1. p. 118.

*** See No 68. p. 8656.