Sheriff-substitute

In Scots Law, a sheriff-substitute, commonly (and, increasingly, officially) called simply a sheriff, is a magistrate sitting in a local Sheriff Court.

The office of sheriff in Scotland is an ancient one, owing its origins to the practice of the King of Scots to appoint leading local magnates to hear disputes between his subjects. In many cases, the office of sheriff became hereditary, a practice strengthened by the clan-based social system that prevailed in parts of Scotland such as the Highlands. As the complexity of the law grew, and its administration began to require specialist knowledge and training, an increasingly common practice was for the hereditary sheriff, usually a layman, to appoint a sheriff-depute to hear cases on his behalf. Because the same sheriff-depute might be appointed to assist several different sheriffs, he in turn would appoint a sheriff-substitute to act in his place when he was unavailable to sit in a particular court.

In the aftermath of the Jacobite rising of 1745, the British government abolished heritable jurisdictions throughout Scotland, including the office of hereditary sheriff. In most cases, the sheriffs-deputes came to formally assume the responsibilities they had already been discharging. The title of sheriff-depute soon fell into disuse, being shortened simply to "sheriff". A local judge appointed by the sheriff would continue to be called a sheriff-substitute.

In the latter part of the 20th century, the titles of sheriff and sheriff-substitute were replaced by sheriff principal and sheriff respectively:

...
Wikipedia