O mica enciclopedie a trinunalelor in Marea Britanie.

The English Legal system had its birth in the 11th Century when William the Conqueror established a strong central government and, amongst other things, began to standardise the law.  For more than 2 centuries,  through the process of sifting  various customs from various parts of the country (accepting only  those  that seemed rational), a consistent body of rules was gradually formed. This meant that whenever a new issue of law came to be decided, the decision of this issue formed a rule to be followed in similar cases. This lead to a “common law”  aslo known as case law. C Elliott, F. Quinn, and E Finch, English Legal System (Longman, 2009)[1].

In Learning the Law (9th ed. 1973), G Williams[2] explains how Legal System of precedent is based on the Latin principle “Stare Decisis”  - abbreviation of "stare decisis et non quieta movere" which means "to stand by decisions and not to disturb settled matters".  His work describes  how the decision of a higher court within the same provincial jurisdiction acts as binding authority on a lower court within that same jurisdiction.

The doctrine of precedent, on which basis the English Courts function, declares that cases must be decided the same way[i] when the case facts are the same, however it does not require that all the facts should be the same, and the persuasiveness dependents upon the level of court which decided the precedent case. However, the date of the precedent case is also important, as the more recent the case, (an outdated case may no longer be in step with modern thinking [3]) the more reliable it will be as authority, although this is not necessarily so.

Although the doctrine intends to offer certainty, detailed practical rules where Judges have clear cases of real situations to follow, free market in legal ideas (if the Ratio of a case works, then it should be followed and if it does not, then it should be abandoned),  to save time  (avoids unnecessary litigation), and offer flexibility , there is considerable literature about whether the doctrine is a good or bad one[4] and[5].

There seems to be agreement on the fact that here are so many precedents that it is hard for judges to find relevant cases and the reasoning may not be clear and unpredictable (difficult to ascertain which precedent, if more than one, to apply to a new case). Moreover the doctrine appears to be based on a rigid system, dependent on chance with unsystematic progression and sometimes with illogical distinctions. Furthermore it appears to be undemocratic, with a restrospective aspect and in many cases it lacks research.  C Elliott, F. Quinn, and E Finch, English Legal System (Longman, 2009).