Principle
The principle of stare decisis can be divided into two components.
The first is the rule that a decision made by a superior court, or by the same court in an earlier decision, is binding precedent that the court itself and all its inferior courts are obligated to follow. The second is the principle that a court should not overturn its own precedent unless there is a strong reason to do so and should be guided by principles from lateral and inferior courts. The second principle, regarding persuasive precedent, is an advisory one that courts can and do ignore occasionally.
Read more about this topic: Binding Precedent
Famous quotes containing the word principle:
“No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them.”
—Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733)
“The principle of majority rule is the mildest form in which the force of numbers can be exercised. It is a pacific substitute for civil war in which the opposing armies are counted and the victory is awarded to the larger before any blood is shed. Except in the sacred tests of democracy and in the incantations of the orators, we hardly take the trouble to pretend that the rule of the majority is not at bottom a rule of force.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old; to overload our hypothesis with a variety of this kind, are certain proofs that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)