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The Inner House is the senior part of the Court of Session, the supreme court civil court in Scotland; the Outer House forms the junior part of the Court of Session. It is a Appeal and a Trial court. The chief justice is the Lord President, with their deputy being the Lord Justice Clerk, and judges of the Inner House are styled Senators of the College of Justice or Lords of Council and Session.Information on composition: Criminal law in Scotland are handled by the High Court of Justiciary sitting as the Court of Appeal.
The Inner House is the part of the Court of Session which acts as a court of appeal for cases from the Outer HouseCourt of Session Act 1988: and from appeals in civil cases from the Court of the Lord Lyon, Scottish Land Court, and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland. It will hear appeals on questions of law from the Sheriff Appeal Court. It will also sit as a court of first instance in rare instances. The Inner House is always a panel of at least three senators and does not sit with a jury.
The division of the Court into two houses was first enacted by the Court of Session Act 1810 and most recently confirmed by the Court of Session Act 1988.
The appellate jurisdiction of the Inner House was substantially altered by the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 which created the Sheriff Appeal Court, which now sees civil appeals being heard by an Appeal Sheriff sitting in the Sheriff Appeal Court. Such appeals are binding on all sheriff courts in Scotland, and appeals can only be remitted (transferred) to the Inner House where they are deemed to be of wider public interest, raise a significant point of law, or are particularly complex:
Section 48 of the Courts Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 establishes the precedent of judgments in the Sheriff Appeal Court, so that when the Sheriff Appeal Court makes a decision on a question of law, it is binding in every sheriffdom for every sheriff court and every justice of the peace court. The decision is also binding on the Sheriff Appeal Court, unless it convenes a bench with a greater number of Appeal Sheriffs than the original court.
It was formerly argued that the Act of Union 1707 expressly forbade appeals from the Court of Session to the House of Lords.Act of Union 1707: Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this was a matter of great concern, as Scottish cases were typically decided by Law Lords with no background in Scots Law. In modern times, the few cases which were so appealed were heard by a judicial committee of five which included at least two senior Scottish judges, but the existence of this right of appeal has been criticised. This debate also spilled into the debate as to whether the judicial functions of the House of Lords and Privy Council should be consolidated in a new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. The ability to appeal to the House of Lords was confirmed by the Court of Session Act 1988.
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