SESSION, COURT OF, is the principal tribunal of civil jurisdiction in Scotland. As at present constituted, it dates back to the year 1532, but it was then reconstructed on the basis of institutions which had existed at a much earlier period. The early records of the Scottish Parliament show that the judicial authority, which in those times was mixed with the legislative functions of that body, was often deputed to committees. These were termed Domini Auditores, or Domini ad Querelas, and received other like titles. We find these committees and theirjunctions placed on a more distinct position in 1503, when a permanent body received the designation of The Daily Council." It is worthy of observation that these incidents in the history of the court explain the absence of jury trial a9 a fundamental feature in the Court of Session, while in early times it is known to have belonged to the courts of the inferior judges. Parliament being the high jury of the nation, it would be au anomaly that a committee of that body should act through the aid of a jury. The number of the court as finally established in 1532 was fifteen, the usual number of a Scottish jury in former times, and still the number of a jury in a criminal prosecution. There was then a lord chancellor of Scotland, whose functions in some degree resembled those of the same official in England. lie presided over the Court of Session, and his judicial functions gradually came to be absorbed in those of the court. At the union with England it was deemed unnecessary to retain a separate chancellor of Scotland, and the great seal to be appended to private documents for that part of the country being committed to a keeper, the court was presided over by the lord president, who previously pre sided in the absence of the chancellor. In 1808 the Court of Session was divided into two divisions : the head of the court, the lord presi dent (who is also now lord justice-general or head of the supremo criminal court) presides in the first division, and the lord justice clerk in the second. In 1815 trial by jury in civil cases was introduced in Scotland, a separate tribunal being established for these cases; but in 1830 the practice of jury trial was united with that of the Court of Session. It is still only adopted in a limited number of cases, and is far from being popular or satisfactory. The Scottish mode of pleading is ill adapted to it, and no means have been found, or indeed tried, of carrying it through with the promptitude and precision which mark the English practice. In 1830 two separate courts of limited jurisdiction
and small practice—the Admiralty and Commissionary Courts—were ab sorbed in the Court of Session, and the number of judges was at the same time reduced from fifteen to thirteen. Eight of these judges, formed into two courts of four judges each, sit in the two divisions of the Inner House, where each division forms a court of second instance. The five other judges are called the Lords Ordinary, and each of them holds a separate court, which, in reference to the court of further resort, is called the " Outer House." The judgment of a lord ordinary on a closed record is final in the Outer House, but it may, within a limited time, be carried by a " reclaiming note " to which the record is appended, to the Inner House, where it may be pleaded again on the record as made up in the Outer House.
The jurisdiction of the Court of Session embraces all questions of civil right. It gives remedy when other courts whose function it is to regulate the rights and duties of certain sections of the public as mem bers of a particular class—such as courts martial and ecclesiastical— exceed their powers. The proceedings before the Court of Session in relation to the church courts were the cause of the great secession from the Scottish Church in 1843. As every description of civil question between man and man in Scotland can be competently decided before the Court of Session, it is usual in England to speak of it as a court " both of Law and equity; " but this is a distinction proceeding from incidental circumstances in the character of the English courts, and is no necessary or properly systematic division of the administration of the law. The Court of Session has the authority enjoyed by the equity courts in England, in the appointment of guardians, receivers, fie., or otherwise seeing to the protection of property, or of persons where discretional protection or direction are necessary, and there is no person competent in ordinary course of Law to act. It has also the same authority as the Court of Exchequer in matters of revenue. By an old practice in Scotland, each "Senator of the College of Justice," as the judges of the Court of Session are officially called, takes the title of lord.