The increase comes in the wake of a 2.3 per cent increase a year ago, and will be followed by a further two per cent increase next year.

Solicitor advocate Andrew Stevenson, president of the Glasgow Bar Association, previously told Scottish Legal News that the GBA opposes these increases as they are inimical to access to justice and are fallaciously based on the notion of full cost recovery.

Malcolm Combe, lecturer in law at Aberdeen University, told SLN: “The fee increases for the Sheriff Court, Sheriff Appeal Court and Court of Session today and indeed the fee increases in one year’s time have been timetabled since the relevant statutory instruments were passed last year and as such should not catch anyone off guard.

“That being said, the ongoing trend for rising court fees are part of a wider issue linked to the policy of ‘full cost recovery’ that could have access to justice implications for court users who are neither the very richest nor very poorest in society – groups either able to afford the fees or who qualify for some kind of support respectively.”