A Dictionary of Law (fifth edition) Oxford University Press

TASK X Read the passage “How judicial precedent works” and explain what is meant by:

a) following a case –

b) distinguishing a case –

c) overruling a case –

d) reversing a case –

                                 How judicial precedent works

When faced with a case on which there appears to be a relevant earlier decision, either by that court (if bound by itself), or a higher one, the judges can do any of the following:

 Follow. If the facts are sufficiently similar, the precedent set by the earlier case is followed, and the law applied in the same way to produce a decision.
Distinguish. Where the facts of the case before the judge are

significantly different from those of the earlier one, then the judge distinguishes the

two cases and need not follow the earlier one.

Overrule. Where the earlier decision was made in a lower court, the judges can overrule that earlier decision if they disagree with the lower court's statement of the law The outcome of the earlier decision remains the same, but will not be followed. The power to overrule cases is only used sparingly because it weakens the authority and respect of the lower courts.

Reverse. If the decision of a lower court is appealed to a higher one, the higher court may change it if they feel the lower court has wrongly interpreted the law. Clearly when a decision is reversed the higher court is usually also overruling the lower court's statement of the law.

In practice the process is rather more complicated than this, since decisions are not always made on the basis of only one previous case; there are usually several different cases offered in support of each side's view of the question.

TASK XI Comment on the following QUOTATION:

Custom, that unwritten law, by which the people keep even kings in awe.

                                                         (Charles D’Avenant, 1656-1714)  

TEXT 2   HOW DO JUDGES REALLY DECIDE CASES?

The independence of the judiciary was ensured by the Act of Settlement 1700, which transferred the power to sack judges from the Crown to Parliament. Consequently, judges should theoretically make their decisions based purely on the logical deductions of precedent, uninfluenced by political or career considerations.

The eighteenth-century legal commentator, William Blackstone, introduced the declaratory theory of law, stating that judges do not make law, but merely, by the rules of precedent, discover and declare the law that has always been: ' [the judge] being sworn to determine, not according to his private sentiments . . . not according to his own private judgment, but according to the known laws and customs of the land: not delegated to pronounce a new law, but to maintain and expound the old one'. Blackstone does not accept that precedent ever offers a choice between two or more interpretations of the law: where a bad decision is made, he states, the new one that reverses or overrules it is not a new law, nor a statement that the old decision was bad law, but a declaration that the previous decision was 'not law', in other words that it was the wrong answer. His view presupposes that there is always one right answer, to be deduced from an objective study of precedent.

Today, however, this position is considered somewhat unrealistic. If the operation of precedent is the precise science Blackstone suggests, a large majority of cases in the higher courts would never come to court at all. The lawyers concerned could simply look up the relevant case law and predict what the decision would be, then advise whichever of the clients would be bound to lose not to bother bringing or fighting the case. In a civil case, or any appeal case, no good lawyer would advise a client to bring or defend a case that they had no chance of winning. Therefore, where such a case is contested, it can be assumed that unless one of the lawyers has made a mistake, it could go either way, and still be in accordance with the law. Further evidence of this is provided by the fact that one can read a judgment of the Court of Appeal, argued as though it were the only possible decision in the light of the cases that had gone before, and then discover that this apparently inevitable decision has promptly been reversed by the House of Lords.

In practice, then, judges' decisions may not be as neutral as Blackstone's declaratory theory suggests: they have to make choices which are by no means spelt out by precedents.

Judges themselves still cling to the image of themselves as neutral decision-makers, even though they admit that there are choices to be made. In a 1972 lecture Lord Reid agreed that the declaratory theory was something of a 'fairytale', but argued that “everyone agrees that impartiality is the first essential in any judge. And that means not only that he must not appear to favour either party. It also means that he must not take sides on political issues. When public opinion is sharply divided on any question – whether or not the division is on party lines – no judge ought in my view to lean to one side or the other if that can possibly be avoided. But sometimes we get a case where that is very difficult to avoid. Then I think we must play safe. We must decide the case on the preponderance of existing authority”.

The caution extended even where there was 'some freedom to go in one or other direction'; in these cases 'we should have regard to common sense, legal principle and public policy in that order'.

Lord Reid made it clear that the first two criteria were unlikely to leave much room for the application of the third, but his reasoning fails to take into account the fact that common sense is by no means a fixed quality – it may be common sense to an employer, for example, that pickets should not be allowed to disturb those employees who want to work, and equally common sense to those pickets that they should be able to protect their jobs in any peaceful way possible. Common sense may be as much a value judgment as public interest.