evaluation

• Give the advantages of judicial precedent


  - Certainty, consistency & fairness

  - Detailed

  - Flexibility

  - Time saving

  - Original precedent
• explain certainty, consistency & fairness


  - Similar cases are treated alike

  - consistency promotes equal treatment & transparency

  - encourages public confidence
• explain detailed

  It is easy for judges to makes decisions due to how much precedent there is to be considered
• explain flexibility


  - laws can be changed to keep up with changing society

  - judges are on front line and can notice problems quickly
• give a case example that links with flexibility

  R v R 1991 - HL made it illegal for husband to rape his wife
• explain time saving

  - cases on similar facts don't go through lengthy litigation as there is already precedent to be followed

  - courts can make decisions quicker than parliament
• What is litigation?


  the process of taking legal action
• explain original precdent


  - allows decisions to be made on new areas of law not previously looked at
• give 2 case examples linking to original precedent

  - Donoghue v Stevenson 1932

  - Bland 1993 - Life support can be turned off if patient is in a persistent vegetative state
• give the disadvantages of judicial precedent


  - Rigidity and expense

  - Complexity and volume

  - Illogical distinctions

  - Slowness of growth

  - Retrospective

  - Judicial background
• explain rigidity and expense


  - Judges must follow binding precedent even if they don't agree with it

  - "bad" laws may take a long time to be changed

  - Requires money & time to pursue cases if on appeal
• explain complexity & volume


  - Almost half a million case reports, so its difficult for judges to find relevant case law

  - Judgements are long & complex & ratio and obiter are not separate so have to read & try and find them yourself (absolute scam)
• explain illogical distinctions


  - distinguishing can lead to "hair-splitting" (arguing about differences that are too small to be important) so some areas of law are complicated

  - Causes unpredictability & is difficult for judges in new cases to decide what to follow
• give the double case example that links to hair-splitting


  Merritt v Merritt & Balfour v Balfour
• explain slowness of growth


  - Judges unable to reform the law until they get a case with those issues

  - Affects higher courts & bigger issues
• explain retrospective


  - changes made to law also apply to events that happened before the case came into court

  - this can lead to unfairness as people may be found guilty for something they didn't know was a crime at the time
• explain judicial background


  - life experience & social background on the judiciary remains unrepresentative of society

  - concerns for judges personal bias on cases

  - lack of diversity within judges