Page:Margaret Hamilton of Rockhall v Lord Lyon King of Arms.pdf/50

 para [52]), it is: whether Dr Lindberg and the pursuer "can be separated out as having different interest or whether they are to be regarded as one party in construing the rights" under the Agreement? For the reasons already given, Dr Lindberg's interests were different from the pursuer's and he had no ostensible interest in paragraph 4, which is at the heart of the dispute in this case.

[90] More fundamentally, I have found that these paragraphs do not have contractual effect. Accordingly, while I find in favour of the defender on that issue, on the basis of the pleadings and arguments as presented at debate, I do not find that paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Agreement are indivisible from the other paragraphs and I reject the defender's argument on the indivisibility point. The pursuer's case would not fall to be dismissed on the basis that Dr Lindberg had not joined it.

[91] If paragraphs 4 and 5 are analysed as indicating how the Lord Lyon proposed to exercise his administrative or ministerial discretion (no distinction was drawn in the arguments before me between those descriptors), on the hypothesis that this is competent, the next question is whether this is an immutable policy (as the pursuer appears at times to have contended) or, if not, what rules govern any proposed change to it. In the absence of full argument, I express my opinion on a tentative basis. There was no argument advanced that the pursuer had any legitimate expectation that might be defeated by the change effected in the Disputed Wording. I reserve my opinion on whether the Lord Lyon's exercise of the royal prerogative in respect of the grant of arms and, more particularly, in respect of the form or language in which that grant is expressed, can ever give rise to a legitimate expectation. This is not to ignore the development of the law in its application of the grounds of judicial review to the exercise of the royal prerogative. Rather, it is to