Stare Decisis

Stare decisis is the doctrine of precedent that underpins the English legal system. As Lord Burrows explained in his 2024 Lord Toulson Memorial Lecture, delivered at the University of Surrey, the doctrine, 'meaning literally "to stand by things decided"', means that 'courts are bound by decisions of higher courts and, subject to the 1966 PS, appellate courts are almost always bound by their own past decisions.' The 1966 PS referred to is the Practice Statement issued by Lord Gardiner LC in the House of Lords, which for decades governed when the UK's highest court could depart from its own earlier rulings.

The doctrine is not absolute. In the 1966 Practice Statement, the House of Lords itself recognised that 'too rigid adherence to precedent may lead to injustice in a particular case and also unduly restrict the proper development of the law', and so resolved that, while treating earlier decisions as 'normally binding, to depart from a previous decision when it appears right to do so'. The House of Lords also stressed the value of precedent in the first place, describing it as an 'indispensable foundation upon which to decide what is the law and its application to individual cases', providing certainty on which people can rely in ordering their affairs. That flexible approach to self-binding precedent was carried over to the UK Supreme Court when it replaced the House of Lords in 2009.