
1 

(1) This Act of Sederunt may be cited as the Act of Sederunt (Electronic Signature and Electronic Transmission of Documents) 2025.
(2) It comes into force on 1st December 2025.
(3) A certified copy is to be inserted in the Books of Sederunt.
2 

(1) Subject to sub-paragraph (2), this Act of Sederunt applies to—
(a) any Act of Sederunt, whenever made;
(b) the Ordinary Cause Rules 1993.
(2) This Act of Sederunt does not apply to commissary business.
(3) In paragraph 2(2), “commissary business” means the business conducted prior to the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act 1876 in the commissary courts and transferred by that Act to the sheriff court.
3 
The types of document referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5 are—
(a) an order, warrant, citation, minute or any other document produced by a court or tribunal;
(b) an extract of any document referred to in sub-paragraph (a);
(c) any document that requires to be given to a person in connection with, or in order to initiate, proceedings;
(d) any document that requires to be signed, initialled or signetted in order that it, or any other thing, may be used in proceedings for any purpose including—
(i) being used as evidence; or
(ii) being treated as sufficient evidence of a matter.
4 

(1) An electronic signature fulfils any requirement (however expressed) for the authentication, certifying, signing, signing and dating, initialling, endorsing or signetting of—
(a) a document of a type mentioned in paragraph 3; or
(b) a deletion or correction to such a document.
(2) In this paragraph, “electronic signature” is to be construed in accordance with section 7(2) of the Electronic Communications Act 2000, but includes a version of an electronic signature which is reproduced on a paper document.
5 

(1) Any requirement (however expressed) that a document of a type mentioned in paragraph 3 be given to a person may be fulfilled by—
(a) transmitting it to the person electronically; or
(b) transmitting it (electronically or otherwise) to a solicitor engaged to act on the person’s behalf in relation to the proceedings in question.
(2) For the purposes of this paragraph—
(a) electronic transmission of a document by one person (“the sender”) to another person (“the recipient”) must be effected in a way that the recipient has indicated to the sender that the recipient is willing to receive the document;
(b) the recipient’s indication of willingness to receive a document in a particular way may be—
(i) specific to the document in question or generally applicable to documents of that kind;
(ii) expressed specifically to the sender or generally (for example on a website);
(iii) inferred from the recipient having previously been willing to receive documents from the sender in that way and not having indicated unwillingness to do so again;
(c) the sender’s uploading of a document to an electronic storage system from which the recipient is able to download the document may constitute electronic transmission of the document from the sender to the recipient.
(3) In this paragraph, references to giving a person a document include—
(a) serving a document on a person;
(b) sending a document to a person;
(c) lodging a document with, or otherwise applying to or petitioning, a court.
6 

(1) The Ordinary Cause Rules 1993 are amended in accordance with sub-paragraph (2).
(2) In rule 1.2 (interpretation), omit paragraph (8).
(3) The Act of Sederunt (Electronic Authentication) 2016 is revoked.
(4) In the Act of Sederunt (Sheriff Court Rules Amendment) (Electronic Authentication) 2016, omit paragraph 2 (amendment of the Ordinary Cause Rules 1993).
PAUL CULLEN
Lord President
I.P.D.
Edinburgh
29th October 2025