Report on the Consolidation of Bankruptcy Legislation in Scotland - Scottish Law Commission Report #232 (Paperback)

The project to consolidate bankruptcy legislation in Scotland followed a suggestion by the Accountant in Bankruptcy, an executive agency of the Scottish Government, which supervises and administers the process of bankruptcy. Although most of the law proposed for consolidation is already contained in a single Act, the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 (the 1985 Act) that Act has been so heavily amended, on so many occasions, that it has lost coherence and rational structure. Many of its provisions (whether sections, subsections or paragraphs) are inordinately long; and numbering has become complex and unwieldy. The primary aim of consolidation is to make the legislation on a particular area of law more accessible for practitioners and for those affected by it, thereby saving time and money. The amendments outlined in Chapter 2 are intended to remove anomalies, to treat like cases in the same way or to omit provisions that are no longer of any practical utility. The amendments are given effect in the Commission's draft consolidation Bill (appendix 2). Considerations of legislative competence and of giving effect to certain provisions in other jurisdictions of the United Kingdom require the various provisions to be divided between a draft Bill of the Scottish Parliament and a draft order of the United Kingdom Parliament under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998. A draft order is included at appendix 3.