The Life of Brian
1. In Scotland the first statutory provision for legal aid was an Act of Parliament of King James I of 1424 when the King decreed that any "poor creature" who could not afford to defend himself before the courts should be given the services of a "good and learned" advocate to plead his cause. What we want to address is what are the principles which ought to apply and what kind of a system would we devise if we had an entirely free hand and a State with a reasonably generous budget. To do that, in addition to reviewing what happens in Scotland, we can look at what other countries have tried to do, learn from their successes and from their failures too.