Senator of the College of Justice
involved in the administration of justice in Scotland
The senators of the College of Justice in Scotland are judges of the College of Justice, a set of legal institutions involved in the administration of justice in Scotland. There are three types of senator: Lords of Session (judges of the Court of Session); Lords Commissioners of Justiciary (judges of the High Court of Justiciary); and the Chairman of the Scottish Land Court. Whilst the High Court and Court of Session historically maintained separate judiciary, these are now identical, and the term senator is almost exclusively used in referring to the judges of these courts.
Senators of the college use the judicial courtesy title of Lord or Lady along with a surname or a territorial name. Note, however, that some senators have a peerage title, which would be used instead of the senatorial title. All senators of the college have the honorific, The Honourable, before their titles, while those who are also privy counsellors or peers have the honorific, The Right Honourable. Senators are made privy counsellors upon promotion to the Inner House, the senior part of the Court of Session.
Under section 11 of the Treason Act 1708, it is treason to kill a senator of the College of Justice "sitting in Judgment in the Exercise of their Office within Scotland".
History
Henry Lauder, Lord St Germains, King's Advocate, was one of the nine advocates appointed at the institution of the College of Justice.
Originally, some officers of state were included as senators, including the Lord Advocate, Lord Clerk Register, Master of Requests and the Secretary of State.
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This entry incorporates text from “Senator of the College of Justice” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.