Pros and Cons of Doctrine of Stare Decisis

Followed the definition by Wikipedia, Stare Decisis is the legal principle by which judges are obliged to obey the set-up precedents established by prior decisions. This means that the judges are bound to follow the decision made by other judges before them in dealing with cases with similar facts.

There are discussion on the pros and cons of such system. Advantages of such system are time saving and convenient. If a problem has already answer and been solved it is natural to reach the same conclusion. Besides that, the existence of stare decisis may prevent a judge from making a mistake that he might have made if he had been left on his own without any guidance. Injustice can be also prevented because the decision made is same with similar cases. The interests of justice also demand impartiality from the judge. This may be assured by the existence of a binding precedent, which he must follow unless it is distinguishable. If he tries to distinguish an indistinguishable case his attempt will be obvious. This can ensures impartiality of judge. The most important advantage of Doctrine of Stare Decisis is it provides greater certainty in the law. It allows persons to order their affairs and come to settlements with a certain amount of confidence.

The disadvantages of such system are it limits the development of law. This is because practical law is founded on experience but the scope for further experience is restricted if the first case is binding. Besides, existence of such system may make judges become thoughtless and over reliance on the doctrine of stare decisis. This is because of convenience of the doctrine and limitation of it. Thus, judges may not need to think beyond the limitation. Another disadvantage of stare decisis is there are simply too many precedents to be referred to. The citation of authority in court should be kept within reasonable bounds because it can be costly in terms of time and money. So, when there are too many precedents to be referred to, unnecessary efforts, time and money are wasted. Moreover, stare decisis is an application of argument from authority logical fallacy and can result in the preservation of cases decided wrongly.