CLAUSE 24.—(Appointment of Officers of the Court of Session.) (Hansard, 18 July 1933)

§ The LORD ADVOCATE
I beg to move, in line 23, to leave out the word "direction,"and to insert instead thereof the word "supervision."
This Amendment must be read in conjunction with the Amendment which follows, and which inserts the words "subject to the directions of the Lord President."With these Amendments made, the Sub-section will read: (3) The Petition Department and the General Department shall be respectively responsible under the supervision of the Principal Clerk and subject to the directions of the Lord President for the allocation among the Divisions of the Inner House or the Lords Ordinary, as the case may be, of the causes assigned to the said departments in pursuance of the foregoing subsection, and the General Department shall be responsible for the division of the causes initiated by summons among—". The effect of these Amendments will be that the two Departments in question will be under the supervision of the Principal Clerk and subject to the directions of the Lord President.

§ The LORD ADVOCATE
I beg to move, in page 16, line 22, after the word "State,"to insert the words: and shall be exercised on nomination by the Lord Advocate. This is an Amendment which relates to Clause 24, the last Sub-section of which deals with the appointment to the office of macer in the Court of Session. At the present time, the appointment rests with His Majesty, and the macer receives his appointment from the hands of the King. His Majesty has been pleased to accept the proposal that the appointment should in future be vested in the Secretary of State for Scotland. At the present time, 1721 the right of nomination lies with the Lord Advocate, and although there is to be an alteration in vesting the Secretary of State with the appointment to the office, it should be made clear that it is not intended to interfere with the existing rights of nomination which are vested in the Lord Advocate. In order to get that matter expressed in case any difficulty should arise in the future, it is proposed that the words on the Paper be inserted.

§ Mr. C. WILLIAMS
Does this apply to all macers? It came out in the Committee that there might be other persons who have the power to appoint maters. If there are any other cases in Scotland—for instance, that of the Marquess of Bute—why does the Government not proceed to take them over? It is rather curious, now that these offices of patronage are being dealt with, that the Scottish Office should not have made a complete job of the whole thing, but should leave one or two cases outside. I think that I am right in saying that there are such cases. In the circumstances, I think that we ought to be given a real reason—if any are left outside—as to why that is being done, and I would ask for that explanation.

§ The LORD ADVOCATE
This does not apply to all macers. The hon. Member is well-founded when he suggests that a right of appointment is vested in the Marquess of Bute. Perhaps there is something to be said for sweeping that into the ambit of the Clause, but it was not done on this occasion because it might involve some difficulty. The hon. Member will see that we are only dealing, as Sub-section (7) states, with The right of appointing to the office of Macer, which in accordance with the law and practice existing immediately prior to the passing of this Act was vested in His Majesty.