Sheriff Courts

A sheriff court (Scottish Gaelic: cùirt an t-siorraim) provides local court service in Scotland, with each court serving a sheriff court district within a sheriffdom.

Sheriff courts deal with a myriad of legal procedures which include:

The office of sheriff dates from the early days of the Scottish monarchy. Generally, one of the more powerful local lords in each county was appointed and the office became hereditary in his family. The original purpose of the sheriff was to exercise and preserve the King's authority against the rival powers of the local lords and the sheriff became the local representative of the King in all matters, judicial and administrative. The sheriff dispensed the King's justice in his county in the Sheriff Court. The hereditary sheriff later delegated his judicial functions to a trained lawyer called a sheriff-depute. The Heritable Jurisdictions Act of 1747 abolished the office of hereditary sheriff and the sheriff-depute soon became sheriff.

At first, only the sheriff of the Lothians and Peebles (who sat at Edinburgh) and the sheriff of Lanarkshire (who sat at Glasgow) were full-time appointments. Since the part-time sheriff-depute was not compelled to reside within his sheriffdom and could carry on his practice as advocate, it became common for a depute to appoint a sheriff-substitute who acted in his absence. Over time, the judicial duties of the depute were entirely assumed by the substitute and the depute became a judge of appeal from the decisions of his substitute.

The Sheriff Court (Scotland) Act 1870 combined the thirty counties of Scotland into fifteen sheriffdoms. Until 1877, the sheriffs-substitutes were appointed by the sheriffs-deputes; after 1877, that right was reserved to the Crown.

The civil procedure before the Sheriff Court underwent a "major overhaul" with the enactment of the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1907.

The legal cases which are heard within the Courts are dealt with by a Sheriff. A Sheriff is a Judge who is usually assigned to work in a specific Court, although some work as 'floating Sheriffs', who may work anywhere in Scotland. There are about a hundred and forty full-time Sheriffs in the various Courts and a number of part-time Sheriffs. They are appointed on the recommendation of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland. Until recently, there were also 'temporary sheriffs' who were appointed by the executive year by year and only sat for particular days by invitation; this class of sheriff was abolished as being inconsistent with judicial independence following the decision of the High Court of Justiciary in Starrs v Ruxton.

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