Scots law is more useful than the law of England and Wales in regard to common law offences as due to the long period with no separate Parliament it didn't go t

Scots law is more useful than the law of England and Wales in regard to common law offences as due to the long period with no separate Parliament it didn't go through the same process that England did of statute law replacing common law. Take the Scottish Breach of the Peace which is very different from the English version. "Where something is done in breach of public order or decorum which might reasonably be expected to lead the lieges being alarmed or upset or tempted to make reprisals at their own hand, the circumstances are such to amount to a breach of the peace". The complex sounding definition is the first thing, common law offences are more descriptive of a course of action than specifically spelling out elements. Over the years cases come along which clarify the boundaries of the offence - for instance requiring a public element, defining who counts as being public (not family members for instance). As a former police officer in Scotland I really like Scots law. It is simple enough that people tend to understand it. It is broad enough to encompass things the legal system may not have encountered before. The UK politically went through a rough time in the 2000s reassessing stalking, Parliament passes a blizzard of legislation trying to define it but didn't need to cover Scotland as it has always been treated as a Breach of the Peace. The big problem is that some cases can have massive unintentional consequences. Two cases that happened in fairly quick succession unintentionally prevented events in your home witnessed only by your family from being a breach. On the one hand that sounds sensible (hence why the court made the ruling) but also invalidated a breach being used to prosecute domestic abuse that didn't go as far as an assault (which again in Scotland is different from England). The Scottish Parliament had to rush through what became known as the "Statutory Breach of Peace" (Section. 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010) in order to restore the ability to do anything.