The Scottish civil court rules re-write project - what’s happening?

Lord Carloway retired as Lord President on 3 February 2025 following a ten-year tenure characterised by bold reform aimed at modernising Scotland’s civil legal system.

The Lord President is the most senior judge in Scotland. Each Lord President passes a legacy to the next, but priorities sometimes change between them. Already, under the new Lord President, Lord Pentland, there appears to be a shift in direction and priorities. 

One of the most ambitious projects Lord Carloway took forward during his time as Lord President and Chair of the Scottish Civil Justice Council was the “rules rewrite project”. This was, and is, a hugely ambitious project, started by Lord Carloway’s predecessor, Lord Gill.

The proposed new rules would give Scottish courts expanded case management powers, beyond the current extent of case management for commercial actions and complex personal injury cases. 

Another notable feature of the proposed new regime is for the same rules to apply in ordinary Sheriff Court litigation as in ordinary Court of Session litigation. Judicial continuity is also sought, by way of the same sheriff or judge dealing with a case from start to finish. The goal of pro-active judicial control of proceedings is to be achieved through case management orders and at case management hearings. Greater pressure is to be applied on parties to narrow the issues truly in dispute. A further proposal is for the judicial option of compulsory referral of parties to “alternative” dispute resolution methods such as mediation or arbitration. Summary disposal of a case lacking any real prospect of success is also intended for the Court of Session in addition to its availability, now, at sheriff court level.  

Case management is designed to give Scottish sheriffs and judges a more pivotal role in proceedings, in very similar ways to those that many of our clients will already be familiar with under the Civil Procedure Rules that apply in England & Wales only.

Other measures aimed at modernising the system include removing “outdated” legal terminology from the rules and encouraging yet further brevity in written pleadings, including by a proposed cap on the number of words.  

This wholescale rules rewrite project gathered significant momentum during Lord Carloway’s tenure as Lord President, with “The New Civil Procedure Rules - First Report”, published in May 2017 and “The New Civil Procedure Rules - Second Report: The Procedural Narrative”, published in August 2022. Consultation on a draft “worked example” of new rules then happened between July and November 2023.

More recently, however, the project has clearly stalled. It currently remains far from completed.

So, will the rules rewrite project be a priority for our new Lord President? The minutes of a Scottish Civil Justice Council strategy day of 31 March 2025, suggest not.  

We see, in the “programme of work” annexed to the minutes of this strategy day, reference to “rules rewrite (the new civil procedure rules)” but it is clear from the minutes overall that this is not currently being prioritised. Instead, the prevailing theme emerging from the 31 March 2025 SCJC strategy day appears to be that it is time for the Scottish civil justice system to pause and take stock of certain matters rather than to press ahead with further radical reform. 

So, the rules rewrite project remains on the agenda in Scotland, but implementation of reform as a result appears to be at least many months, perhaps years, away.

Clyde & Co are specialists in dealing with Scottish injury claims, and we closely monitor developments around this topic. For more on this subject, you can read all of our previous articles here, and if you have any questions about this topic you can contact Angus Gillies or any of our Scottish Catastrophic Injury and Large Loss team.