ratio decidendi & obiter dicta

• What is common law?

  law made by judges through their decisions, not through specific statutes
• what 2 things is common law made up of?

  - ratio decidendi

  - obiter dicta
• What is ratio decidendi?

  The reasoning behind a legal decision
• What is obiter dicta?

  a judge's remarks which are not necessary to reaching a decision, but are made as comments, illustrations or thoughts (other things said)
• why is ratio decidendi significant?

  It is the most important part of the judgement as it forms the legal reasoning

  It is the binding (must be followed in similar cases with similar facts) part of the judgement
• why is obiter dicta significant?

  It is intended to assist other judges in future cases making it persuasive precedent - a future judge can follow or ignore
• give an example of when obiter dicta was followed

  R v Gotts 1992 based on the previous case of R v Howe 1987
• What was the R v Howe & the R v Gotts cases?

  R v Howe - house of lords said duress (violence, threats, constraint) could not be a defence to murder (ratio) and they wouldn't have allowed it for attempted murder either (obiter)

  R v Gotts - Attempted murder case, Howe's obiter was followed