The use of precedent has been justified as providing predictability‚ stability‚ fairness‚ and efficiency in the law. Reliance upon precedent contributes predictability to the law because it provides notice of what a person’s rights and obligations are in particular circumstances. A person contemplating an action has the ability to know beforehand the legal outcome. It also means that lawyers can give legal advice to clients based on settled rules of law. The use of precedent also stabilizes
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PRECEDENT SETTING CASE CLN 4U0 The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens (1884)‚ 14 Q.B.D. 273 Court of Queen’s Bench‚ England Facts: Thomas Dudley‚ Edward Stephens‚ and the deceased‚ a boy between seventeen and eighteen years of age‚ were set adrift in a lifeboat during a storm on the high seas 1000 miles from the nearest land. They had neither food nor water to subsist upon. For twenty days‚ they managed to survive by catching and eating a turtle and drinking rain water caught in their oilskin
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doctrine of judicial precedent has been at the heart of the English legal system being a form of certainty for judges to follow long standing precedent which in fact‚ only slowly evolved and nurtured. Judicial precedent refers to the hierarchical structure of the English courts within which a decision of a higher court will be binding on a court lower in the hierarchy. However‚ there have been occasions where the Court of Appeal departed from the decisions of the House of Lords this has been treated
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Advantages and Disadvantages of the jury system Advantages of the Jury System Long established trial by peers which has public confidence Lord Devlin‚ a famous House of Lords judge‚ has said that trial by jury is the “lamp that shows that freedom lives”‚ arguing that a defendant has the right to be tried by his peers. Supporters of this view maintain that a jury will exercise common sense rather than slavishly follow the law. For example the case of R v Wang W was charged with having an article
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Part 1. Judicial Precedent “Stare decesis et non quieta movere” – roughly translated means “Stand by what has been decided and do not unsettle the established” - This is the main legal principle‚ which judges are obliged to follow the already set-up precedents‚ established by prior decisions. This means that a decision made in one case can be binding on all following cases under similar circumstances. The principle of stare decisis consists of two components. The first is the rule that a decision
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Binding Precedent The English Legal System is hierarchical whereby the decision of a higher court binds lower courts. The doctrine of binding precedent‚ stare decisis‚ (stand by things decided) is at the core of the legal system. The Superior Court is at the top of the legal pyramid and its decisions bind all lower courts‚ except on civil cases involving European law where the European Court of Justice is the court of last resort. Below the Superior Court‚ we have the Court of Appeal‚ and it is
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Institutions Essay Title: ‘Judicial precedent is best understood as a practice of the courts and not as a set of binding rules. As a practice it could be refined or changed by the courts as they wish.’ Discuss Judicial precedent is a judgment or decision of a court which is used as an authority for reaching the same decision in subsequent cases. In English law‚ judgment and decisions can represent authoritative precedent (which is generally binding and
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Doctrine of Judicial Binding Precedent This question raises the issue of the role of precedent. In order to examine the statement‚ scrutiny of the doctrine of the judicial precedent is required. Case law is used to describe the collection of reported decisions of the courts‚ and the principles which stem from them. Lord Macmillan made this observation that the case by case development is superior to those based on hypothetical models. “.....any fixed theory and that principles always fail because
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believed that the relationship between certainty and flexibility in judicial precedent has struck a fine line between being necessary and being precarious. The problem is that these two concepts of judicial precedent are seen as working against each other and not in tandem. There is proof‚ however‚ that as contrasting as they are on the surface they are actually working together to achieve one common goal. Judicial precedent in its broad definition is the process by which judges follow previously decided
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DOCTRINE OF PRECEDENT AND STARE DECISIS What do you understand by precedent in the English legal system? It is a legal case establishing a principle or rule that a court or other judicial body may utilize when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a legal system based upon the doctrine of precedent instead of having a legal system based upon codified law? Advantages 1. Provides certainty in law. 2. Judges have clear
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