Johnson v Grant

JurisdictionScotland
Judgment Date05 June 1923
Docket NumberNo. 86.
Date05 June 1923
CourtCourt of Session
Court of Session
1st Division

Lord President (Clyde), Lord Skerrington, Lord Cullen, Lord Sands.

No. 86.
Johnson
and
Grant.

Administration of JusticeInterdictBreach of interdictImprisonmentRemission of sentenceApology and undertaking to comply with orders of Court.

The respondents in a petition and complaint for breach of interdict were sentenced to two months' imprisonment. After serving ten days of their sentence they tendered, by counsel, an apology to the Court and an undertaking to comply with its orders in the future, and moved the Court to remit the remainder of the sentence. The complainer did not oppose the motion, and the Court, in the circumstances, ordered the respondents to be set at liberty.

Observations, per the Lord President, upon the character of the offence of breach of interdict, and the considerations affecting the question of remission of sentence.

Observed that a sentence of imprisonment on petition and complaint for breach of interdict is the sentence of the Court that pronounces it, and no application with regard to it can be dealt with except by that Court.

On 24th January 1923 Walter Lyulph Johnson, of Strathaird in the Isle of Skye, with concurrence of the Lord Advocate, presented a petition and complaint against John Grant, Alexander Mackinnon, Donald Mackinnon, Alick Robertson, John Nicolson, Alexander Mackinnon, and John Macarthur, all resident in Skye, for alleged breach of interim interdicts granted by the Lord Ordinary on the Bills on 2nd and 18th December 1922, interdicting the respondents from entering upon, and from in any way encroaching on, the lands and estate of Strathaird. Answers to the petition and complaint were lodged by the respondents.

On 26th May 1923 the respondents, other than the respondent John Macarthur, appeared at the bar of the First Division, when the Court found that they had broken the interdicts granted on 2nd and 18th December 1922, and pronounced sentence upon them of two months' imprisonment.

On 5th June 1923, in the Single Bills of the First Division, counsel for the six respondents upon whom sentence had been passed tendered a note containing an apology to the Court by these respondents and an undertaking to comply with the orders of the Court, and moved that the remainder of their sentence should be remitted. He referred to the case of Gordon Cathcart v. Campbell,1 in which the Second Division of the Court had, in similar circumstances, on 18th July 1908, ordered the liberation of persons...

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  • Attorney General v Times Newspapers Ltd
    • United Kingdom
    • House of Lords
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    ...misleading, suggesting in some contexts that it exists to protect the dignity of the judges. Over 100 years ago Bowen L.J. explained in In re. Johnson (1888) 20 Q.B.D. 68, 74: "The law has armed the High Court of Justice with the power and imposed on it the duty of preventing … any attempt ......
  • Stewart Robertson+stephen Gough V. Her Majesty's Advocate
    • United Kingdom
    • High Court of Justiciary
    • 7 November 2007
    ...power to vindicate its authority against contemptuous challenges, and to do so by punishing contempt at its own hand (Johnson v Grant, 1923 SC 789, Lord President Clyde at pp 790-791; cf IH Jacob, The Inherent Jurisdiction of the Court, (1970) 23 CLP 23, at p 27). By dealing with contempt p......
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