Precedent

In common law legal systems, precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules, so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observance of precedent is the mechanism by which that goal is attained. The principle by which judges are bound to precedents is known as stare decisis (a Latin phrase literally means, 'Let the decision stand'). Common-law precedent is a third kind of law, on equal footing with statutory law (that is, statutes and codes enacted by legislative bodies) and subordinate legislation - that is, delegated legislation (in U.K. parlance) or regulatory law (in U.S. parlance) (that is, regulations promulgated by executive branch agencies).nder the doctrine of stare decisis, all tribunals exercising inferior jurisdiction are required to follow decisions of courts exercising superior jurisdiction. Otherwise, the doctrine of stare decisis makes no sense. The decisions of this court are binding upon and must be followed by all the state courts of California. Decisions of every division of the District Courts of Appeal are binding upon all the justice and municipal courts and upon all the superior courts of this state, and this is so whether or not the superior court is acting as a trial or appellate court. Courts exercising inferior jurisdiction must accept the law declared by courts of superior jurisdiction. It is not their function to attempt to overrule decisions of a higher court.By the end of the eighteenth century, the common law courts had absorbed most of the business of their nonroyal competitors, although there was still internal competition among the different common law courts themselves. During the nineteenth century, legal reform movements in both England and the United States brought this to an end as well by merging the various common law courts into a unified system of courts with a formal hierarchical structure. This and the advent of reliable private case reporters made adherence to the doctrine of stare decisis practical and the practice soon evolved of holding judges to be bound by the decisions of courts of superior or equal status in their jurisdiction.Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right. ... But in cases involving the Federal Constitution, where correction through legislative action is practically impossible, this Court has often overruled its earlier decisions. ... This is strikingly true of cases under the due process clause.hen convinced of former error, this Court has never felt constrained to follow precedent. In constitutional questions, where correction depends upon amendment, and not upon legislative action, this Court throughout its history has freely exercised its power to reexamine the basis of its constitutional decisions.I think overruling a case or reconsidering a case is a very serious matter. Certainly, you would have to be of the view that a case is incorrectly decided, but I think even that is not adequate. There are some cases that you may not agree with that should not be overruled. Stare decisis provides continuity to our system, it provides predictability, and in our process of case-by-case decision-making, I think it is a very important and critical concept. A judge that wants to reconsider a case and certainly one who wants to overrule a case has the burden of demonstrating that not only is the case incorrect, but that it would be appropriate, in view of stare decisis, to make that additional step of overruling that case.American courts of last resort recognize a rebuttable presumption against overruling their own past decisions. In earlier eras, people often suggested that this presumption did not apply if the past decision, in the view of the court's current members, was demonstrably erroneous. But when the Supreme Court makes similar noises today, it is roundly criticized. At least within the academy, conventional wisdom now maintains that a purported demonstration of error is not enough to justify overruling a past decision. ...he conventional wisdom is wrong to suggest that any coherent doctrine of stare decisis must include a presumption against overruling precedent that the current court deems demonstrably erroneous. The doctrine of stare decisis would indeed be no doctrine at all if courts were free to overrule a past decision simply because they would have reached a different decision as an original matter. But when a court says that a past decision is demonstrably erroneous, it is saying not only that it would have reached a different decision as an original matter, but also that the prior court went beyond the range of indeterminacy created by the relevant source of law. ... Americans from the Founding on believed that court decisions could help 'liquidate' or settle the meaning of ambiguous provisions of written law. Later courts generally were supposed to abide by such 'liquidations.' ... To the extent that the underlying legal provision was determinate, however, courts were not thought to be similarly bound by precedent that misinterpreted it. ... Of the Court's current members, Justices Scalia and Thomas seem to have the most faith in the determinacy of the legal texts that come before the Court. It should come as no surprise that they also seem the most willing to overrule the Court's past decisions. ... Prominent journalists and other commentators suggest that there is some contradiction between these Justices' mantra of 'judicial restraint' and any systematic re-examination of precedent. But if one believes in the determinacy of the underlying legal texts, one need not define 'judicial restraint' solely in terms of fidelity to precedent; one can also speak of fidelity to the texts themselves.Some instances of disregarding precedent are almost universally considered inappropriate. For example, in a rare showing of unity in a Supreme Court opinion discussing judicial activism, Justice Stevens wrote that a circuit court 'engaged in an indefensible brand of judicial activism' when it 'refused to follow' a 'controlling precedent' of the Supreme Court. The rule that lower courts should abide by controlling precedent, sometimes called 'vertical precedent,' can safely be called settled law. It appears to be equally well accepted that the act of disregarding vertical precedent qualifies as one kind of judicial activism. 'Horizontal precedent,' the doctrine requiring a court 'to follow its own prior decisions in similar cases,' is a more complicated and debatable matter....cademics argue that it is sometimes proper to disregard horizontal precedent. Professor Gary Lawson, for example, has argued that stare decisis itself may be unconstitutional if it requires the Court to adhere to an erroneous reading of the Constitution. 'If the Constitution says X and a prior judicial decision says Y, a court has not merely the power, but the obligation, to prefer the Constitution.' In the same vein, Professors Ahkil Amar and Vikram Amar have stated, 'Our general view is that the Rehnquist Court's articulated theory of stare decisis tends to improperly elevate judicial doctrine over the Constitution itself.' It does so, they argue, 'by requiring excessive deference to past decisions that themselves may have been misinterpretations of the law of the land.For Lawson, Akhil Amar, and Vikram Amar, dismissing erroneous horizontal precedent would not be judicial activism; instead, it would be appropriate constitutional decisionmaking. In common law legal systems, precedent is a principle or rule established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Common-law legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules, so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes, and observance of precedent is the mechanism by which that goal is attained. The principle by which judges are bound to precedents is known as stare decisis (a Latin phrase literally means, 'Let the decision stand'). Common-law precedent is a third kind of law, on equal footing with statutory law (that is, statutes and codes enacted by legislative bodies) and subordinate legislation - that is, delegated legislation (in U.K. parlance) or regulatory law (in U.S. parlance) (that is, regulations promulgated by executive branch agencies). Case law, in common-law jurisdictions, is the set of decisions of adjudicatory tribunals or other rulings that can be cited as precedent. In most countries, including most European countries, the term is applied to any set of rulings on law, which is guided by previous rulings, for example, previous decisions of a government agency. Essential to the development of case law is the publication and indexing of decisions for use by lawyers, courts, and the general public, in the form of law reports. While all decisions are precedent (though at varying levels of authority as discussed throughout this article), some become 'leading cases' or 'landmark decisions' that are cited especially often.