Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
PROPER, adj. In Sc. Law combs.: †1. proper improbation, n., the setting aside or discrediting of a document on the grounds of its falsity or the fact that it has been forged, as distinct from reduction-improbation where the charge of forgery or falsity is brought merely in order to force the production of the document in court. See quots. and Improbation; 2. proper jurisdiction, n., the authority of a judge when acting in his own person as distinct from that delegated by him to a deputy (Sc. 1838 W. Bell Dict. Law Scot. 793).1. Sc. 1754 Erskine Institute iv. i. § 18:
Recissory actions are either, first, actions of proper improbation, in which the pursuer concludes that a deed ought to be declared improbative, i.e. set aside upon real grounds of forgery and falsehood . . . or secondly actions of reduction-improbation, which are brought for declaring writings to be false and forged, fictione juris only.2. Sc. 1754 Erskine Institute i. ii. § 13, 14:
The Sheriffs appointed in pursuance of the late Jurisdiction Act are improperly styled deputies in that statute . . . for they have a proper, not a delegated jurisdiction . . . Delegated jurisdiction is not, in the judgment of law, the jurisdiction of the deputy who acts; for he has no proper jurisdiction; but of the judge who appoints him, and from whom alone he drives authority.
