Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1960 (SND Vol. V).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
INFORMATION, n. Sc. Law usages, freq. in pl.:
1. In court actions: a written argument ordered either by a Lord Ordinary in the Court of Session when reporting a case to the Inner House, or by the Court of Justiciary when difficult questions of law arise.Sc. 1704 Fountainhall Decisions II. 209:
The Lords found there was no necessity of a written information in this case, seeing the Bailie himself came to the place where he was contravening the acts of parliament.Sc. 1752 J. Louthian Form of Process 102:
The Clerk . . . reads the Prosecutor's Information, with the Information or Answers thereto for the Pannel, off the Book; and after all is read, the Preses resumes the Heads of the Information and Answers to the Lords and desires their Opinion.Sc. 1798 Monthly Mag. (Sept.) 175:
Informations — Cases for the information of the court, when the Lord Ordinary, instead of giving a decision himself, reports the cause, on account of its intricacy or importance to the whole judges.Sc. 1818 Scott H. Midlothian iv.:
The Information for Porteous, (the paper namely, in which his case was stated to the judges of the criminal court).Sc. 1838 Bell Dict. Law Scot. 493:
Under the old form of process in the Court of Session, an information was a written argument ordered by the Lord Ordinary, when he took a cause to report to the Inner House. . . . In the Court of Justiciary, in cases of difficulty on questions of law and relevancy, the Court is in use to order Informations, on which the points raised are argued fully in writing.
2. In criminal cases: a formal written accusation or statement of the charge.Sc. 1701 Acts Parl. Scot. X. 272:
His Majestie . . . Enacts and Ordains that all Informers shall signe their Informations.Rxb. 1778 J. Wilson Hawick (1850) 165:
By warrant of the Sheriff of Roxburghshire, to whom the bailies by this time had presented an information, they were hurried away from Hawick.Sc. 1904 A. M. Anderson Crim. Law 240:
In the case of commitment for trial, three things, as a rule, are essential: — 1. A signed information which need not be formal.
