Doctrine of Stare Decisis

The Doctrine of Stare Decisis is perhaps one of the most important studies in the field of law that was practise ever since from 1820s in the Supreme Court of England. In fact, from our lecturer, this is one of the most interesting area that cramps all the law students very much.

Adapted from Wikipedia,

Stare decisis (Latin: [ˈstaːre deːˈkiːsiːs], Anglicisation: [ˈsteɹɪ diˈsaɪsɪs]) is the legal principle by which judges are obliged to obey the precedents established by prior decisions. The words originate from the Latin phrase Stare decisis et non quieta movere, "Maintain what has been decided and do not alter that which has been established".

In the United States, which uses a common law system in its federal courts and most of its state courts, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has stated:

Stare decisis is the policy of the court to stand by precedent; the term is but an abbreviation of stare decisis et quieta non movere — "to stand by and adhere to decisions and not disturb what is settled." Consider the word "decisis." The word means, literally and legally, the decision. Nor is the doctrine stare dictis; it is not "to stand by or keep to what was said." Nor is the doctrine stare rationibus decidendi — "to keep to the rationes decidendi of past cases." Rather, under the doctrine of stare decisis a case is important only for what it decides — for the "what," not for the "why," and not for the "how." Insofar as precedent is concerned, stare decisis is important only for the decision, for the detailed legal consequence following a detailed set of facts.

In fact, this Doctrine as mentioned by my lecturer is that, most British colonised country will probably practise this doctrine. The easier understanding of this doctrine is that, "judges are bound to follow the decision made by other judges before them in dealing with cases with similar facts, whether is horizontally or vertically". Horizontally applies whereby the decision is bounded by earlier judges with the same level as the one using it. Vertically is like a superior to subordinate, whereby the one practising now is folowing the decision from a higher court or superior court.

And probably Stare Decisis is the one that makes law really hard, as they truly need to memorize and research a lot whenever they are going for a legal suit. And probably this makes two statements fairly accurate.
One will be by George Santayana, "Those who don't remember their history, are condemned to repeat the same mistake again".
Second, "The more research, just like any fields that you made, the more meticulous and trustable your information are".

Back to the topic, although Stare Decisis may meant that way, it is not as easy as is seem. Learning from my lecturer and also my law friends, not all the cases are the same and they varies, due to generation differences, technology and lots of evolvement. Thus, a lot of justification must be made as similar as possible to the case that is brought forward. But truly, it is not that easy, not just in pointing out the similarity, but to convince people that every information delivered makes hell of a sense.

So from there, we can see two things, the normal two things of advantages and disadvantages. The questioned that was brought up to me, that leaves me mumble something that I understand myself. From the positive point of view, it brings efficiency. Simply, you do not have to waste your time doing the same thing that was done earlier. In another word, REFERENCING. Apart from that will be the stability in law, that through either cultivation or cases from centuries ago, people know what is allowable and what is not. From the sources of Wiki Answers, "...to promote a uniformity of law throughout the country. Different states are free to disagree among themselves as to what laws govern in their states, but since most court made law comes from common law England, many legal principles have the same roots. Courts of different states do try to make rulings in line with other states even though they do not have to."

Although uniformity of law may be seem as both positive and negative. The negative sidepoint will be that uniformity shows that everything that happen will be the same, and there are no OTHERWISE! To rule autocratically is good, but democratically, it may seem absurb. Also, the expectability of the results may seem quite the same. Let's say there are so many cases of raping in Malaysia, and most of them will likely to get the same punishment, and out of probably thousand, only one exceptional case may happen. This simply leads to the restrictions of Judge to command and to open up to new debate. Why? Because let's say, if horizontally, most people will accept the results, but vertically, everyone might be thinking that, is that Judge trying to outrun the law of the Supreme Court, or getting some flashlight for himself. Thus this is not developing the study of law. And as time goes by, back to the 1800, the mentality of people are much different, with humans nowadays slightly more fabricated.

Thus, from that as usual, let's speculate some real case that is happening, in fact TODAY! Back in 1998, one of the Malaysia's most bizarre political scandal that involve the Deputy Prime Minister, accused and found guilty of sodomising a guy. Ten years later, after he was released from the prison of his act in 2004, he is once again being accused in the same story, with his personal assistant as well. For many of us, who knew the true story behind the court, many of us have regretted that incident, simply the media is making a truly bad name of the accused. However, this time, media are so broad and many are well informed that 1998 case may have some slippage of information. But decision have be made, so in 2010, with February 3rd the first day where their case begin, does it mean, it will be using Stare Decisis again?