When people have issues, and decides to dispute their issues through the court system, the outcome of the dispute is normally documented and reported in the records of the court.
The keeping of such records, helps in the speedy and efficient determination of similar issue by the court. This is what is legally termed as Judicial Precedent.
Judicial Precedent, also known in Latin as ‘stare decisis’, is a doctrine which guides the courts to decide cases coming before them, in similar fashion as cases with similar facts already decided in the past.
Thus, the precedent is to look for similar facts of a previous dispute and apply the same decision reach by the court in that dispute to future cases with the same or similar facts.
Where the facts are different, Judicial Precedent will not apply. ‘Stare Decisis’ literally means ‘standing by previous decisions’.