The amount of civil law actions initiated in Scottish courts is at its lowest since statistics began in 2008.
The latest figures, published by Scotland’s Chief Statistician show that there were 76,800 civil law cases files in the financial year 2014-15, a drop of 42% since 2008-09. Although, the number of cases raised has seen very little change since 2012-13, suggesting the decline may have come to an end. These figures show the situation before the (Scotland) Act 2014 reform took effect.
Divorces continued their downward trend as a 6% reduction on the previous year resulted in 9,000 divorces in 2014-15. Termination of civil partnerships rose to 81 cases from 61 cases the year before.
There were 33,800 debt cases raised in 2014-15, 49% lower than 2008-09. There are several routes for settling disputes over debt and it is possible that non-court remedies are becoming the most effective. Despite the downturn in debt cases they still make up almost half of civil law cases in sheriff courts, followed by eviction actions, matrimonial disputes and personal injury actions.
Civil law proceedings raised at the Court of Session in 2014-15 were up 13% in comparison to the previous year to 5,200. This increase was mainly due to a 224 per cent rise in clinical negligence actions.
The amount of cases raised in sheriff courts, which accounted for 93% of all civil law cases, was down 1 per cent at 71,600.
