文档介绍：ACCA F4《公司法与商法》知识点讲解（3）
  1 Doctrine of judicial precedent
 
Common law and equity are a body of judge made laws contained in decisions of the courts called judgements.
 
Judge – made law or case law is whereby judges follow the decisions of other judges. The doctrine of precedent is sometimes referred to as 'stare decisis': let the decision stand.
 
For case law to be workable as a source of law it needs to achieve consistency. Various 'rules' have therefore developed to achieve this aim.
 
‘Rules’:
 
Only statements of law made by judges can form precedent. In turn these statements must be divided up into ratio decidendi (the reason for the decision) and obiter dicta (other comments).
 
Only the ratio decidendi forms the basis of precedent as it is this reasoning which is vital to his decision. Obiter dicta are statements of general law (or hypothetical situations) which are not necessary for the decision in the case and hence are not binding.
 
As the ratio decidendi of a case stems from specific facts if a precedent is to be followed in a subsequent case the facts of that case must be sufficiently similar.
 
The precedent must have been set by a court capable of creating precedent and not have been overruled.
 
Hierarchy of the courts:
 
(a) House of Lords – binds all lower courts but no