Publisher's Synopsis
It has been said that precedent is the life blood of legal systems. Certainly, an understanding of precedent is vital to an understanding of the workings of law. The principle that decisions should follow those of past similar cases seems simple enough, yet it turns out to be beset with difficulties.;What is the justification for following precedents? Do we want absolute, unswerving following of past decisions or a weaker implementation that allows for limited departures? What social and theoretical forces wrought changes in the doctrine? Are judicial pronouncements on precedent rules or just conventions? How do we identify the ratio decidendi of a case? What are the means by which a general "projectable" conclusion may be elicited from a particular judgment? These are some of the problems addressed by contributors to this volume.
