Scottish law glossaries

Further to the Scottish law sites mentioned recently. I have two glossaries of Scottish legal terms:

Green’s Glossary of Scottish Legal Terms, by A.G.M.Duncan, 1992, ISBN 0 414 01001 9

and Glossary: Scottish Legal Terms, Latin Maxims and European Community Legal Terms, published by Butterworths and The Law Society of Scotland, 1988, ISBN 0 406 02057 4 (the EU terms are in a separate section at the back)

Then there is Collins Dictionary of Law, by W.J. Stewart, 2nd ed. 2001, ISBN 0 00 710294, one of those paperback dictionaries usually of English legal terms that are not bad but not as comprehensive as Black’s for the USA or Creifelds for Germany. But Collins has a lot of Scottish terms in it, which is unusual. Collins can even be got as an e-book (Microsoft Reader).

I think the Butterworths must be out of print (I don’t even know if Butterworths have kept their name after being bought up by someone else).

Here’s a small electronic glossary, produced by the BBC in connection with the Lockerbie trial, which was governed by Scottish law (they declared a bit of the Netherlands Scottish land for the purpose). Here another glossary.Here is the Scottish law bookshop Avizandum.

Avizandum means ‘to be looked into or considered: the taking of time for consideration before a judgment is given’.

And Absolvitor (see previous entry) mans ‘a final civil judgment in favour of the defender’ (defendant), or as Green’s put it ‘The judgment pronounced when a court assoilzies’. Assoilzie means ‘to absolve or decide finally in favour of a defender’. It’s a good word, because in English law we have no such verb. We have acquit in criminal cases, but in civil cases it has to be something like ‘decide in favour of the defendant’. – Those words aren’t in Collins, by the way.

While I’m at it, Delia Venables’ site is usually the best place to start for law in Britain. Here is her page with links to Scottish law resources.

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