Definition
Ordinances issued by the judges of the Scottish Court of Session regulating the forms of procedure and practice to be observed before that court. Acts of Sederunt have the force of subordinate legislation: they govern procedural matters such as the conduct of hearings, the form of pleadings, service of process, and the administration of justice in civil proceedings. Their authority derives from an Act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 1540, which granted the Court of Session power to make such rules for its own governance.
The term is the plural form; a single such ordinance is an Act of Sederunt.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in Scottish legal history or comparative procedural law will encounter Acts of Sederunt as the primary mechanism by which the Court of Session shaped its own practice across several centuries. Because they are judicial-legislative instruments rather than parliamentary statutes, they do not appear in the main runs of Scottish statutory material and must be sought separately — historically in court records, institutional writers, and dedicated compilations.
A practical trap: historical sources treat Acts of Sederunt as a distinctly Scottish institution with no precise English equivalent. Researchers accustomed to English procedural sources may look for analogous rules of court under different headings entirely. Do not conflate them with English Rules of Court, which derive from a different constitutional basis and institutional history.
The authority of Acts of Sederunt has evolved. In the modern Scottish legal system, the Court of Session Act 1988 and the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 provide the current statutory basis for this rule-making power, which now extends beyond the Court of Session to other Scottish civil courts. Pre-1988 sources will cite the 1540 parliamentary grant as the foundational authority; post-devolution sources may frame the power differently in light of the Scotland Act 1998 and the role of the Scottish Parliament. Researchers must be alert to which constitutional frame is operative in the source they are reading.
The corpus contains institutional writers — Erskine and Forbes in particular — who address Acts of Sederunt directly. Burrill cites Erskine's Institutes and Forbes's Institutes of the Law of Scotland; Black's and Bouvier's both cite Erskine's Principles. These are the primary secondary authorities in historical sources and the first stop for interpretive context.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries are in substantial agreement on the core definition: Acts of Sederunt are procedural ordinances of the Court of Session, made by the judges under authority of the 1540 Act of Parliament. The variation across sources is minor and mainly structural.
Burrill's entry is the most informative of the group. It alone explains the etymology: the name derives from the Latin word sederunt — "they sat" — because such acts historically began with that word, or because they are made by the lords sitting in judgment. Burrill also cites Forbes's Institutes alongside Erskine, and adds the substantive gloss that the ordinances govern "all actions or matters which may be brought before" the court, framing the scope more broadly than the other dictionaries. The reference to Arkley (likely Arkley's reports) suggests case-law context that the other sources omit.
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's are nearly identical in text, suggesting common derivation. Rapalje & Lawrence is the sparest, but adds nothing in conflict. None of the historical dictionaries address the evolution of the power beyond 1540 or the modern statutory basis — a predictable gap given their dates of composition.
What the historical sources miss: they treat Acts of Sederunt as exclusively the province of the Court of Session. The modern position is broader, with comparable rule-making powers extended to the Sheriff Courts and other Scottish civil tribunals. Researchers using only historical dictionary sources will have an incomplete picture of the current scope.
Jurisdictional Note
Acts of Sederunt are exclusively a feature of Scots law. They have no counterpart in English, Welsh, or Northern Irish law, and the term will not appear in English procedural sources except as a comparative or descriptive reference. Researchers working in a UK-wide context should not assume that procedural rules bearing the same subject matter have the same form or authority across jurisdictions.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Scottish Court of Session; Scottish Legal Procedure