Summary Judicial Precedent (full notes for essay with latest updates)
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Legal System and Method (LA1031)
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UOL
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Learning Legal Rules
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JUDICIAL PRECEDENT
Intro
Judicial Precedent refers to past decision of judges that forms a source of law for future judges to follow.
It is based on the maxim of “stare decisis” means to stand by what was decided, in other words, cases
with similar facts should be treated the same way as this provide for certainty. Most of law of tort and
contract and important crime such as murder and common assault are a creation of judge and nor
Parliament. For decision to remain binding, the earlier case should contain a statement of law which forms
part of the ratio decidendi (refers to the legal reasoning for the decision in a case and is binding upon on
future cases), it was decided by a superior court or a court whose decisions are binding upon the court
dealing with the latter case., and it does not contain any significant difference in the material facts as
compared to the latter case. Not all facts in a case will be relevant to the decision and the judge will
generally make fairly clear which facts are relevant. For example, in Donoghue v Stevenson court dealt
with the question of whether a manufacturer of a food product could be liable for causing injury to the
ultimate consumer of the product as a result of negligent manufacture. In this case Mrs Steveson was
made ill as a result of consuming ginger beer poured from a brown bottle which contained a dead snail.
The fact that the bottle was brown and thus the content could not be examined was a material fact while
the fact that the content of the bottle was ginger beer was not material. The bottle could have contained
lemonade or any other drink. The point was that the contents could not be examined. The term of obiter
dicta refers to any part of a judgement not forming the ratio decidendi, including dissenting judgement
and hypothetical scenarios. While non-binding, obiter dicta may form persuasive precedent in later cases.
Generally, the doctrine of judicial precedent emphasizes on certainty, stability and accumulated wisdom
from the past. Ultimately, for doctrine to operate efficiently, there must be established hierarchy of
courts and accurate law reporting.
In the English common law system, the doctrine of binding precedent means that a judge in a lower court
must apply a decision made in a similar case in a higher court or, indeed, in a court at the same level.
These are the concept horizontal and vertical precedent.
HOL
The vertical precedent in the Supreme Court, generally, the Supreme Court is bound to follow the decision
of the European Court of Justice as the UK is a member of the European Union. In terms of the courts
below the Supreme Court, the doctrine of precedent asserts that decisions of the Supreme Court is
binding upon all the courts below it.
The horizontal precedent of the House of Lords, the House of Lords (now know as the Supreme Court
pursuant to the Constitutional Reform Act 2005) hears appeal on civil and criminal matters based on great
public importance. Initially, the House of Lords was bound by its own previous decisions (self-binding) as
seen in the case of London Transways Co. Ltd v London County Council (1898) where Lord Halsbury
acknowledged that although case if individual hardship may result from the House of Lords being bound
by its own decision, the need for clear principle over-rides the hardship cause in individual. Thus, it is
apparent that the conventional doctrine of judicial precedent was rigid and the main aim is to provide for
certainty, predictability and stability of the law even at the expense of not providing justice to an
individual.
In 1966, Lord Gardiner proposed to modify the rigid precedents which may lead to injustice and all judges
in the House of Lords joined together to issue a Practice Statement allowing the House of Lords to depart
from its own previous decision if it appears right to do so as it was recognised that too rigid an adherence
to precedent may lead to injustice in a particular case and also limit the development of law. Theodore
Benditt opined that the Practice Statement may be regarded as a legislative or revolutionary modification
of the then existing rule of precedent. Despite that, the House of Lords recognizes the danger of flexibility,
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