Page:Margaret Hamilton of Rockhall v Lord Lyon King of Arms.pdf/52

 immutable, unless altered with the consent of all interested parties. I reject as ill-founded the pursuer's argument to the contrary. Thirdly, the arguments about whether the contracts of one Lord Lyon bind his successor (on the hypothesis that these parts of the Agreement had contractual effect), or the mutation of that argument to impute liability on the Monarch (as the principal on whose behalf the royal prerogative was exercised, albeit by different Lord Lyons (and which meant any action required to be directed against the Advocate General for Scotland)), do not arise. Fourthly, as I have found that these paragraphs do not have contractual effect, there is no scope for application of rules of imputation into contracts of the terms of duration or, absent such a term, of rules about the subsistence of a contract without express duration until there is a material change of circumstances. It follows that the criticisms of the defender's pleadings for want of averments about these matters are without any force.

[93] The foregoing suffices to resolve the critical issue between the parties. Out of deference to the arguments I have heard, I address the other issues.

Other issues

The termination issue

[94] In the event that I had concluded that paragraph 4 constituted an enforceable obligation, that it was conceived in favour of the pursuer or enforceable by the pursuer, and that it was a liability that transmitted against the defender, the current Lord Lyon, I would have nonetheless rejected as ill-founded the pursuer's contention that this was incapable of termination. The authorities cited by the defender amply vouched that it would have been appropriate to imply a right of termination upon giving reasonable notice. Even if the