OF SESSION - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

OF SESSIONAuthored

The Law Mind • 717 words

Definition

"Of Session" is a Scottish legal designation identifying an officer who holds a salaried appointment within the High Court of Justice in Scotland. The full phrase most commonly appears in the title "Lord of Session," denoting a judge of the Court of Session — Scotland's supreme civil court — who receives a fixed salary attached to the office rather than fees contingent on business. The phrase signals both institutional affiliation and a formal, remunerated judicial or quasi-judicial role within that court structure.

Common Confusion

The Bouvier source entry for "Of Session" appears alongside the entry for Extradition, suggesting a typographical or editorial bleed-through in the historical dictionary — a known hazard in digitized legal reference works. Researchers encountering this term in Bouvier should treat the surrounding text with caution and not read any connection between "Of Session" and extradition doctrine. They are unrelated concepts that appear adjacent only by editorial accident.

Why It Matters in Research

The primary research value of this term is as a qualifier in Scottish legal titles and court records. When reading historical Scottish materials — session papers, court rolls, or judicial correspondence — "of Session" identifies the actor's institutional home and salary structure, which has bearing on questions of judicial authority, jurisdictional competence, and the weight to be given to the officer's actions or rulings.

Researchers using Law Mind corpus materials should be aware of two specific traps:

First, the phrase "Court of Session" and the designation "of Session" are related but not interchangeable. The court is the institution; "of Session" is an attribute of the officer. Conflating them can produce misreadings of historical pleadings or procedural records.

Second, Scottish legal terminology migrated imperfectly into English legal dictionaries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. American legal dictionaries — including Bouvier — often carried Scottish terms as reference entries without deep explanatory context, because Scots law influenced certain areas of American equity and commercial practice. When Bouvier defines an officer "of Session" as a salaried officer, he is relaying a structural distinction that matters more in Scottish constitutional history than in American practice, but the entry exists in American legal reference works because American lawyers occasionally encountered Scottish authorities.

The salary dimension — which Bouvier's entry specifically flags — is not incidental. In historical court systems, the distinction between salaried officers and fee-based officers determined how costs were taxed, how appeals were structured, and sometimes which sovereign or legislative body held authority over the officer's conduct. In Scottish legal history, the salaried character of Lords of Session was a constitutional point of some significance, touching on judicial independence and parliamentary control over the judiciary.

Historical Dictionary Support

Bouvier's entry, as preserved in the Law Mind corpus, is fragmentary — the definition is truncated at "salaried officer of the High Court of Justice" before the text runs into the Extradition entry. This is an artifact of the source digitization and not a reflection of Bouvier's original completeness. Researchers should treat the Bouvier text for this term as a starting point only.

No other source dictionaries in the current set cover "Of Session." The absence of coverage in English common law dictionaries is expected: the term is a Scots law designation and would appear more fully developed in Scottish institutional writers such as Stair, Erskine, or Bell, rather than in English or American legal reference works. Historical researchers needing depth on this term should look beyond the Law Mind dictionary corpus to Scottish legal institutional sources.

Bouvier's inclusion of the term at all reflects the nineteenth-century American legal dictionary practice of cataloging foreign and civil law terms for practitioners who might encounter them in treatises or as persuasive authority, even when those terms had no direct American application.

Jurisdictional Note

This term is specific to Scots law. It has no direct counterpart in English common law or American legal systems. American courts and practitioners encountering the phrase in historical materials should read it as a Scottish institutional designation and not import its meaning into common law contexts.

OF SESSIONmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

In Scotland. A sala- ried officer of the High Court of Justice. EXTRADITION (Lat. ex, from, tra- ditio, handing over). The surrender by one sovereign state to another, on its demand, of persons charged with the commission of crime within its jurisdiction, that they may be dealt with according to its laws. The surrender of persons by one sover- eign state or political community to an- other, on its demand, pursuant to treaty stipulations between them. The surrender of persons by one federal state to another, on its demand, pursuant to their federal constitution and laws. Without treaty stipulations. Public jurists are not agreed as to whether extradition, independent of treaty stipulations, is a matter of imperative duty or of discretion merely. Some have maintained the doctrine that the obligation to surrender fugitive criminals was perfect, and the duty of ful- filling it, therefore, imperative, especially where the crimes of which they were ac- cused affected the peace and safety of the state; but others regard the obligation as imperfect in its nature. and a refusal to surrender such fugitives as affording no ground of offence. Of the former opinion are Grotius, Heineccius, Burlamaquí, Vat- tel, Rutherforth, Schmelzing, and Kent; the latter is maintained by Puffendorf, Voet, Martens, Klüber, Leyser, Kluit, Saalfeld, Schmaltz, Mittermeyer, Heffter, and Wheaton. Except under the provisions of treaties, the delivery by one country to another of fugitives from justice is a matter of comity, not of obligation; 119 U. S. 407. Foreign extradition belongs solely to the national government; 14 How. 103; 10 S. & R. 125; 119 U. S. 407. A state cannot regulate the surrender of fugitives from justice to foreign countries; 50 N. Y. 321. Many nations have practised extradition without treaty engagements to that effect, as the result of mutual comity and conven- ience; others have refused. The United States has always declined to surrender criminals unless bound by treaty to do so; 1 Kent 39, n.; 1 Opin. Attys. Gen. 511; 6 id. 85, 481; 50 N. Y. 321; 14 Pet. 540; 12 Vt. 631; 1 Dall. 120. The existence of an extradition treaty does not prohibit the surrender by either country of a person charged with a crime not enumerated in the treaty; 36 Pac. Rep. (Cal.) 669. No state has an absolute right to demand of another the delivery of a fugitive crimi- nal, though it has what is called an imper- fect right, but a refusal to deliver the crim- inal is no just cause of war. Per Tilgh- man, C. J., in 10 S. & R. 125. Under treaty stipulations. The sover- eignty of the United States, as it respects foreign states, being vested by the consti- tution in the federal government, it apper- tains to it exclusively to perform the du- ties of extradition which, by treaties, it may assume; 14 Pet. 540; 119 U. S. 407; and, to enable the executive to discharge such duties, congress passed the act of Aug. 12, 1848, 11 Stat. L. 302. The general government alone has the power to enact laws for the extradition of foreign crim- inals. It possesses that power under the treaty power in the constitution; 14 Pet. 540; 50 Ν. Υ. 321; 12 Blatch. 391. See 14 How. 103. Treaties have been made between the United States and many foreign powers for the mutual surrender of persons charged with certain crimes. These treaties may be found in full in the United States Statutes at Large, in 2 Moore on Extradition 1072; Haswell, Treaties & Conventions, U.S. See also 17 Am. L. J. 44. Austria-Hungary. Murder, assault with intent to commit murder, piracy, arson, robbery, forgery, counterfeiting, and em- bezzlement of public moneys. Baden. Same as Austria-Hungary. Bavaria. Same as Austria-Hungary. Belgium. Murder, attempt to commit murder, rape, abortion, arson, bigamy. pira- cy, mutiny, burglary, forgery, counterfeit- ing, embezzlement of public moneys and also of private moneys, wilful destruction or obstruction of railroads which endan- gers human life, reception of articles ob- tained by means of any one of the above crimes. Bremen. Same as Prussia. See post. Dominican Republic. Murder, attempt to commit murder, rape, forgery, counter- feiting, arson, robbery, intimidation, forc- ible entry of an inhabited house, piracy, embezzlement by public officers or by pri- vate persons. Ecuador. Murder, arson, rapė, piracy, mutiny, burglary, forgery, counterfeiting, embezzlement of public property. France. Murder, rape, forgery, arson, embezzlement by public officers or private persons and counterfeiting. Great Britain. Murder, manslaughter, assault with intent to commit murder, piracy, arson, robbery, forgery, counter- feiting, embezzlement, larceny, receiving money or valuables known to have been embezzled stolen, or fraudulently obtained, fraud by a bailee, banker, agent, factor, trustee, or director of board of officers of any company made criminal by the laws of both countries, perjury, rape, abduction, child-stealing, kidnapping, house-breaking, shop-breaking, piracy, mu

Explore the full Law Mind legal research platform.

Subscribe Encyclopedia Sign In