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The law can turn out to be different from what everyone thought. A higher court can reverse it. Even in the highest court, stating the definitive law, justices
by hyperthesis 3y ago
The law can turn out to be different from what everyone thought. A higher court can reverse it. Even in the highest court, stating the definitive law, justices often dissent.
So the idea that the law actually exists, and we just have to find it, doesn't seem correct. Given that judges were usually barristers before, it's more like: one barrister confidently argues that the law has always been X, the opposing barrister confidently argies it's always been Y, the former-barrister confidently argues that it has always been Z - and that one always wins.
- eru 3y agoBtw, not all jurisdictions even care about precedence. So courts can't reverse anything. (Though in practice precedence seems to have about equal value in common law and civil law jurisdictions. In common law, the court just has to nitpick enough to find a difference between the current case and the precedent, to argue why the latter should not apply. In civil law, courts routinely defer to precedence as a matter of convention and habit.)