何为遵循先例原则

对于遵循先例原则的抨击是绝对主义复兴的一部分,这种偏见源于19世纪美国接受的反对不受限制的权力的说教。有些人认为,法院应当继续以行政而非司法的方式运作。正确的理解是,遵循先例原则是普通法审判技术的特征,在这种技术中,存在具有拘束力的判例和有说服力的判例之分。导致对遵循先例原则的不满的原因在于,我们的技术适用标准和在适用标准中起决定作用的法律的理念要素。惟有通过发现和确立标准、法律推理的有权威性的起点,才能根据经验和跳出经验来处理新情况。法律改革者应当攻击的不是遵循先例原则,而是需要纠正的司法习惯。如果立法机关没有尽职,还应考虑如何使立法主体承担相应责任。

What of Stare Decisis?

The attack on stare decisis is a part of the revival of absolutism.This prejudice stems from the settled teaching of nineteenth-century America which opposed the deposit of unlimited governmental power anywhere.Someone regards that courts should proceed in the administrative rather than in the judicial manner.Rightly understood,stare decisis is a feature of the common-law technique of decision.In that technique there is a distinction between binding authority and persuasive authority.The causes of dissatisfaction which lead to attacks upon stare decisis are in our technique of applying standards and in the ideal element of law which is decisive in applying standards.It is finding and establishing principles,authoritative starting points for legal reasoning that enable new situations to be dealt with in the light of experience and rules to grow out of application of experience.The law reformer should be assailing not stare decisis but the judicial habit which needs rectification.If legislation is not doing its part,we should be thinking about how to make legislative bodies equal to the task.