History

The Treaty of Union of 1707 provided for the retention of a separate system of law in Scotland, particularly where this concerned private rights. The extent to which the Roman-Dutch element in Scots law has persisted since, despite the loss of legislative understanding at Westminster, is a tribute to the strength of a system based on principle rather than on precedent, which inspires Anglo-Saxon common law. Not only is Roman law influence still felt, it remains entirely competent to appeal to the ancient institutional writers' statements of valid law when apparent gaps are identified during a case. When a civil litigant appeals to the House of Lords as the highest civil appeal court (no such appeal is competent in criminal cases) the case is heard on the basis of Scots law. Since 1876 there has been at least one Law Lord from the Scottish Bench. This appeal function will be transferred to the proposed UK Supreme Court when the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 comes into effect.

Corroboration has long been a supremely important principle but, in civil cases, facts can now be provided by evidence from a single source. Hearsay evidence is competent, though not desirable (Civil Evidence (Scotland) Act 1988). In the criminal sphere, with a few statutory exceptions, an accused may not be convicted on the testimony of a single witness, but corroboration is not required if the accused can be shown to have ‘special knowledge’ of a crime, that is to say, cannot have known details unless they themselves perpetrated the crime.