What is precedent? Why is pecedent important in the development of the law?

Answer 1

It's the legal doctrine that says past decisions by higher courts are considered binding requirements on lower courts.

Precedent and "stare decisis" are go back centuries to the common law courts of England, which is the origin of the legal systems in the US, Canada and Australia.

The rulings of courts have value in later cases to ensure that the same set of facts achieves the same outcome. If courts did not work that way, every judge would be free to re-interpret the laws, without any regard for what previous court decisions had said on the subject, and there would be no consitency at all in judicial decisions.

I wrote an essay that talks about this concept (linked below).

Answer 2

Its a flawed legal situation where previous cases have set the standard for future cases of similar issue. The problem is that if the original judgment was flawed, the balance of the decisions based on it as precedent are also flawed. To be absolutely fair, each case should stand on its own merit irregardless of any past judgments. One case in point is the so called Seperation Of Church And State. Back in the 1960's an athiest took to the courts to stop anything religious from being displayed, practiced or spoken on any government property because it offended her and she calimed that the goverment was forbidden to endorse religion by the constitution. This was false as the constitution only forbids congress from establishing a national religion by law, a BIG difference. After many years of legal battles the athiest won a judgment. This was based on the court agreeing that this antiest had a constitutional right not have to be offended by seeing religious anything on government property, and agreeing that by government entities allowing people to practice or express their religion on government property was congress making a law establishing a national religion. In doing so they violated the first amendment rights of the people where it states that no law or judgment of law shall put asunder the right of the people to practice their religion freely and as they see fit. That case has been used by anti-religious zealots and the ACLU in hundreds of cases since, as precedent to violate peoples religious rights. Its almost impossible to change this situation because the courts, judges, and lawyers will never admit they made a mistake in the first decision. Hello... Catch 22!!

Answer 3

to 'set the stage' so to speak