Scots law student with questions?

[Guest]

Hello, I was unfortunately absent the majority of semester 1 of my first year due to medical conditions- and somehow managed to scrape C's.

I have a tonne of questions, and will likely be posting similar threads in future, because during lock down I'm finally physically able to re-do the work again that I missed. Although I passed, I missed a lot of the fundamentals, resulting in some likely stupid questions. I would ask my lecturers/tutors but I feel really incredibly embarrassed about the whole ordeal and while sure they'd be understanding, I'm not comfortable to explain my situation.

Pre-amble over, my questions are
1) What does it mean when in a case it says "Lord xyz was on circuit"? What does it mean to be "on circuit" ?
2) What is positive/negative/neutral judicial consideration? ie. What do each of the terms mean

I'm very thankful for any help and if there are any more appropriate forums to be posting to please let me know.

[Aged William]

A quick JFGI found these E&W definitions, but I assume there's little difference in Scotland

1) Circuit judges are appointed to one of the six circuits in England and Wales, and sit in the Crown and County Courts within their particular region. Some Circuit Judges deal specifically with criminal or civil cases, while others are authorised to hear public and/or private law family cases.
https://www.rainscourt.com/judges/

2) In a Common Law jurisdiction, judges have the ability to change or clarify the law and to set precedents which bind the court in later cases. But as the law is continually developing, and as cases decided by one court can be affected by later decisions of a higher court, it is essential for anyone researching case law to know to what extent, if at all, any particular case may have been affected by such “subsequent consideration”.
https://www.iclr.co.uk/knowledge/gui...e-to-good-law/

[R0b]

For the first question, Aged William is right in that there is little difference and I believe is a reference to the earlier way of how things were dealt with. Being "on circuit" essentially means that the judges would have travelled to different circuits around the country to hear cases. An English comparison would be the court of assizes where higher authority judges e.g. High Court, Court of Appeal etc. would travel around the country to hear serious cases that could not be dealt with by local judges/magistrates. Court of assizes were abolished in the 70s and I presume this also happened at some point in Scotland but I'm not a Scottish expert so I wouldn't know.

For the second question, the answer will depend on where you got those references from. I suspect those statuses came from Westlaw, because that's what they use. The short answer is they are given to allow you to identify immediately whether the case is good law not. Put simply, never use a case in court with negative judicial treatment, it won't go down very well - I caveat that by saying you may be able to use it if the court hearing the case is a higher authority than the one that overruled it.

Negative Judicial Treatment
Indicates that at least one point of law has been overruled or reversed. This is an immediate notification that the case is no longer good law.

Positive or Neutral Judicial Treatment
Indicates that a case has been judicially considered and received positive or neutral treatment as part of its direct or indirect history.

Mixed or Mildy Negative Judicial Treatment
Indicates that the judgment has received mixed or mildly negative treatment from citing cases.