Can courts consider foreign precedents in their rulings?

Question

Do courts sometimes take into consideration the precedents established by foreign courts when making a decision on an issue? I don't mean use them the same way they would use domestic legal precedents, but can they look at them and consider them while making their judgements, if no similar precedent has been established before by a domestic court?

Answer 1

they can, but they have to be introduced in proceedings.
it is likely that they will be ignored unless you use foriegn strictly meaning not in THIS jurisdiction.

Answer 2

Courts and judges can consider anything they want in their opions.

The most common are holdings of other courts addressing the same matter, student law review notes and legal treatises or scholarly works addressing the issue. These secondary and non-binding sources give the court something to consider, another perspective or another analytical approach to reach its own conclusion.

This is especially useful hen the matter is one of "first impression" for this court, and there is no clear path of analysis that reaches a simple answer. By looking at what other learned legal scholars and judges have said, the court can consider those approaches as ways to help it reach its own conclusion.

The practice of quoting foreign opinions or texts comes from the basic ethical requirement of honesty. A judge can't plagiarize someone else's works without proper attribution. The judge is still making the domestic legal statement, just giving proper credit if they use a particular quote because they happen to like the language.

Answer 3

There is currently a raging debate among the various justices of the U.S. Supreme Court as to the weight, if any, to assign foreign court decisions. Justice Scalia has repeatedly spoken (outside the Court) about the issue - his view is that unless the Court is called upon to apply the foreign law or othewise deal with it, the foreign law has no application in consideration as to the applicability or constitutionality of any U.S. law.

Others, apparently, disagree.

Answer 4

Judges sometimes quote foreign precedents in their decisions...even Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy has promoted the idea. However, there is no constitutional basis to do this and any decision that uses a foreign precedent which is contrary to US law is unconstitutional in its essence.

Answer 5

Any US court can only consider US generated opinions in rulings.

US has sovereignity over itself and no one else (well, the UN is a different legal creation).

In one world government, all opinions become one body. Under such a system, sharia law could become legal throughout the world. Do we want this?

Answer 6

I hope not.