Scots Law News
| Pages | 343-350 |
| DOI | 10.3366/E1364980908000607 |
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
The first “interim outline edition” of the
General provisions.
Contracts and other juridical acts.
Obligations and corresponding rights.
Specific contracts and the rights and obligations arising from them (this includes sales, lease, services, mandate, commercial agency, franchise and distributorship, and personal security).
Benevolent intervention in another's affairs (what Scots lawyers have traditionally called
Non-contractual liability arising out of damage caused to another (i.e. delict).
Unjustified enrichment.
An employment tribunal in Glasgow held on 16 April 2008 that baldness was not a disability in a case brought by former art teacher James Campbell (61) against Falkirk Council also claiming constructive and unfair dismissal from a post at Denny High School. Mr Campbell, who retired in 2007, claimed that he suffered harassment and taunting from pupils on account of his baldness, and that he was not protected from this by his employers, contrary to the Disability Discrimination Act 1996. Dismissing the argument, tribunal chair Robert Gall remarked that “If baldness was to be regarded as an impairment, then perhaps a physical feature such as a big nose, big ears or being smaller than average height might of themselves be regarded as an impairment under the DDA” – which, he thought, could not be right.
In 2007 Stuart Kennedy was charged under section 47(1) of the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 with impersonating a police officer and carrying offensive weapons (two police truncheons or batons, and a fake CS spray canister), but turned out to be working as a stripogram in an Aberdeen bar, starting his act in a police uniform and working under the professional name of Sergeant Eros. The impersonation charge was later dropped but the Crown pressed on with the offensive weapons charges and, when these were dismissed by an Aberdeen sheriff on 4 December 2007, appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal. There were concerns that the sheriff's ruling would enable anyone carrying offensive weapons to say they were going to a fancy dress (or undress) party. “We could,” argued the advocate depute, Brian McConnachie QC, “have ninjas carrying nunchaku sticks or going as a ned carrying a flick knife”. The court announced on 25 April 2008 that the appeal had failed: see
We readily accept, of course, that the carrying of offensive weapons in a public place is a serious matter which, in the public interest, is perfectly properly prohibited by section 47 of the 1995 Act and its various predecessors in earlier legislation. However, that prohibition has always been subject to the proviso that the carrying of such an article will not be unlawful if it is done with lawful authority or reasonable excuse. That, in our view, must mean that the legislature has consistently foreseen that there may, from time to time, be circumstances in which a person in possession of an offensive weapon may have an excuse for doing so which can...
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