JUDICIAL STANDING ORDERS (Hansard, 25 March 1964)

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE)

My Lords, I beg to move the first Amendment to the Standing Orders relating to Judicial Business standing in my name on the Order Paper. On February 26, 1959, your Lordships amended Standing Order I regulating Judicial Business in your 1258 Lordships' House so as to provide that appeals from the Court of Appeal in England and Northern Ireland and from the Court of Session in Scotland should be brought within three months of the order or interlocutor complained of, instead of within six months, as had formerly been the case. The Standing Order as then amended included a proviso that in the case of orders or interlocutors made before April 1, 1959, the period for appeal should still be six months. With the passage of time that proviso is now spent, and therefore I beg to move its deletion from the Standing Order.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I beg to move the second Amendment standing in my name. This Standing Order provides that in appeals from Scotland the Appellants shall lay before your Lordships' House a copy of the record "as authenticated by the Lord Ordinary". The closed record is the document which contains the pursuer's condescendence and the defender's answers thereto as fully adjusted at the sight of the Lord Ordinary and which forms the pleadings upon which the subsequent procedure takes place. The Lord Ordinary is said to "close the record" when parties have completed their adjustments on the pleadings. I am informed that in fact the Lord Ordinary has not so authenticated the record for a number of years, but that this is done by the Deputy Principal Clerk of Session. This official takes charge of the Process Department of the Court of Session by virtue of an Act of Sederunt. This Amendment will regularise the present practice. My Lords, I beg to move.