Scots law is unlike the legal system in Britain, Canada and other parts of the globe.
A law student in the University of Glasgow calls it a hybrid, as it is a mix of continental Europe’s civil law traditions, and England’s common law tradition. The former is a system that dates back to ancient Rome and based on a written code of rules, while the latter is a system where courts study earlier cases and apply them to current laws and situations.
What the English and the Canadian law calls a tort, is delict in Scotland. Lawyers are called advocates. Anyone convicted of lower-level lawsuits and crimes talk to the Sheriff and not the judge.
Jurors don’t have two, but three verdicts to choose from – guilty, not guilty and not proven, which has the same legal effect as not guilty, but implies that the accused did commit the crime but there is insufficient evidence to prove his wrongdoing.
The difference in Scots law also translates to its family law.
Scotland’s family law is different from the rest of Britain. It focuses more on what resources each separating party needs to start over, rather than who gets what. The primary aim is to achieve a clean financial break, which would be advantageous for both parties.
The law also allows wedding ceremonies to be performed under unconventional and non-traditional belief systems. That is, it is perfectly okay for Scots identified with the “Jedi order”, as their religion, to be pronounced as legally married. To marry in an extra-terrestrial ceremony is easier done in Scotland than anywhere else.
When it comes to same sex marriage, Scotland was way ahead of Britain. 10 years before Britain legalised same sex marriage in 2014, to be exact. It is also perfectly legal for people of the same sex, but in different clans to marry.
