Business Law - Statutory Interpretation and Judicial Precedence
As society’s dynamics of interaction evolves through time due to technology, globalization and unpredictable future events, the law that governs the society has to evolve as a result. This is to ensure that justice is served with effectiveness and fairness. Henceforth, judges play an important role towards this development of the legal system to a certain extent, through their decisions made within the parameters of certain doctrines that provide consistency and guidance (Lewis, 2012). Two such doctrines are the judicial precedent and the statutory interpretation.
The judicial precedent is a major source of law that follows a Latin phrase “stare decisis” which refers to the obligation of courts to honor past precedents (Tufal, 2012). These past precedents are able to affect the development of law, as they can be binding, persuasive or original in nature towards future cases.
However, in order to fully understand how judges can develop the law through the doctrine of judicial precedent, it is necessary to understand the operation of the doctrine. At the end of every case, the judge will give a judgment and explain his/her decision and his/her reasons. These reasons are derived from the evaluation of the principles of law and the judge will explain them based on these principles which are also known as “Ratio Decidendi” in Latin, meaning the reasons for deciding (Lewis, 2012). This ratio is basically a binding precedent towards future cases of similar facts in lower courts or courts of the same level with certain exceptions such as the Practice Statement (1966) and distinguishing that allows the avoidance of precedents. In other words, judges from the higher courts are able to develop the law through overruling and reversing the decisions made by lower courts, as the lower court’s precedents do not bind them but instead act as persuasive precedents. While judges from the lower courts or the same courts are able to develop the law through avoiding precedents
The judicial precedent is a major source of law that follows a Latin phrase “stare decisis” which refers to the obligation of courts to honor past precedents (Tufal, 2012). These past precedents are able to affect the development of law, as they can be binding, persuasive or original in nature towards future cases.
However, in order to fully understand how judges can develop the law through the doctrine of judicial precedent, it is necessary to understand the operation of the doctrine. At the end of every case, the judge will give a judgment and explain his/her decision and his/her reasons. These reasons are derived from the evaluation of the principles of law and the judge will explain them based on these principles which are also known as “Ratio Decidendi” in Latin, meaning the reasons for deciding (Lewis, 2012). This ratio is basically a binding precedent towards future cases of similar facts in lower courts or courts of the same level with certain exceptions such as the Practice Statement (1966) and distinguishing that allows the avoidance of precedents. In other words, judges from the higher courts are able to develop the law through overruling and reversing the decisions made by lower courts, as the lower court’s precedents do not bind them but instead act as persuasive precedents. While judges from the lower courts or the same courts are able to develop the law through avoiding precedents
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