JAMES WATSON & Ors v The COMMISSIONERS of POLICE of GLASGOW (Court of Session)

At a meeting of the Commissioners, held 21 July 1831, it was resolved, contrary to the former practice, that the vote at the election to offices should in future be by ballot, ‘the casting vote of the chairman, in case of an equality of votes, being always reserved to him.’

This regulation or bye-law, though never ratified or published in the manner required by the above enactment, was followed in the election of a surgeon to the establishment, and some time afterwards of a superintendent. For the latter office there were several candidates; but the final ballot was taken for Messrs Watson and Denovan only; and the votes, as counted by the chairman, being equally divided, he proceeded to give a casting vote for the latter candidate, who accordingly was declared to be duly elected, and the clerk was directed to inform him of the result.

A few days after this election, Mr Watson and several Commissioners and others presented a bill of suspension and interdict against the induction of Mr Denovan into the office of Superintendent, and the exercise of its functions by him, until it should be ascertained, by competent authority, that he had been validly elected thereto. The grounds of the application were, I. That the election by ballot was illegal, in as much as this mode of ascertaining the vote was contrary to former practice, to the act of Parliament, and to the common law of the land.

But independently both of the practice and the statute, the complainers contended, that adoption of the ballot, or other concealed mode of voting, into the proceedings of any public municipal body, like this Board of Police Commissioners, was in direct opposition to the common and constitutional law of the country.

II. The actual majority of votes was given in favour of Mr Watson, and, consequently, the chairman's casting vote was an illegal assumption of power. This the complainers offered to prove by competent evidence, and, in the meantime, produced a declaration of the fact, signed by a majority of the Commissioners who voted on the occasion.