Law Making Essay

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Unit 1 – Law Making: January 2009 Paper 1 (a) Explain what is meant by the doctrine of precedent in English law. (15 marks) The doctrine of precedent is the lawyer’s term for legal experience, and is essentially repeating things that have been done in the past. This is important to keep some degree of certainty in our law. Judicial precedent means the process whereby judges follow previously decided cases where the facts are of sufficient similarity. An application of the principle stare decisis is involved in the doctrine of judicial precedent, which means ‘to stand by the decided’. This means, in practise, that inferior courts are bound to apply the legal principles set down by superior courts in earlier cases, providing consistency and predictability in law. (b) Identify and briefly discuss two advantages and two disadvantages of the doctrine of judicial precedent. (15 marks) An advantage of the doctrine of judicial precedent is the fact that it provides a certain amount of consistency and predictability in the law, so that lawyers, barristers and other legal professionals will be able to advise their clients on the most probable outcome of their trial. Judicial precedent is also useful because it shows that similar cases are handled in a similar way, which is both in the interest of justice and fairness, as well as in the public interest. A disadvantage of the doctrine of judicial precedent is due to the fact that hundreds of cases are reported each year; it can lead to confusion as to what the correct precedent is that should be applied to the case. Another disadvantage of judicial precedent is the idea that the law is far too complex and therefore applying a past precedent could not be correct due to the distinctions which make each case individual. 2 (a) Describe any three influences on Parliament as a law maker. (15 marks) There are a lot
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