Women graduates of St Andrews and Edinburgh, who, as graduates, were members of the general council of their university, sought a declarator that they were entitled to vote under section 27 of the 1868 Act. The section provided that ‘every person’ whose name was on the register of the general council, if of full age ‘and not subject to any legal incapacity’, was to be entitled to vote for the member of Parliament for the university.
Held: The section did not confer a right to vote on women graduates.
Lord Loreburn LC commented, ‘It would require a convincing demonstration to satisfy me that Parliament intended to effect a constitutional change so momentous and far-reaching by so furtive a process.’
Lord Ashbourne said: ‘If it was intended to make a vast constitutional change in favour of women graduates, one would expect to find plain language and express statement.’
Judges:
Lord Loreburn LC
Citations:
[1909] AC 147, 1909 SC (HL) 10, [1908] UKHL 3, (1908) 16 SLT 619
Links:
Statutes:
Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868 27, Universities Elections Amendment (Scotland) Act 1881
Jurisdiction:
Scotland
Cited by:
Cited – Watkins v Home Office and others HL 29-Mar-2006
The claimant complained of misfeasance in public office by the prisons for having opened and read protected correspondence whilst he was in prison. The respondent argued that he had suffered no loss. The judge had found that bad faith was . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Constitutional, Elections, Education
Updated: 14 June 2022; Ref: scu.240006