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New precedents are created all the time. Just look at the US supreme court which is a court with the primary responsibility of establishing case law precedents
by a_humean 10y ago
New precedents are created all the time. Just look at the US supreme court which is a court with the primary responsibility of establishing case law precedents when lower courts disagree on statue and case law. They recently legalised gay marriage (I'd say good outcome based on bad reasoning, but whatever) and made it impossible for the US states and their courts from blocking gay marriage due to the precedent set as the highest court. Lower courts can now prosecute against states and officials that try to block it. The only thing that could override that ruling at this point is a constitutional amendment.
I don't think we get many courts creating laws on picking strawberries out of season though. There would need to be an existing legal context in which strawberries picking out of season is an edge case that can be decided by case law.
- mysterypie 10y agoAha, so that's an actual modern-day example? An official who tries to prevent a gay marriage can be punished under common law even though there is no legislated law against officials trying to prevent gay marriage.
- a_humean 10y agoYes, there is no explicit statute that says that an official can be punished for preventing gay marriage, but new case law would make this an offence and a lower court might need to establish further new case law to decide what an appropriate punishment might be for the official or state that does try to block it within the legal context of similar violations of law both in statute and case law. Basically they would get fired for not performing their duties as an official.