Stare Decisis in UK Law

As a general rule the only cases in which decisions should be held to have been given per incuriam are these of decisions given in ignorance or forgetfulness of some inconsistent statutory provision or of some authority binding on the Court concerned: so that in such cases some part of the decision or some step in the reasoning on which it is based is found, on that account, to be demonstrably wrong.

If we are bound by these decisions, and we are unless they can be treated as having been reached per incuriam, they represent a very considerable change in the law for which, so far as I can see, there is absolutely no warrant. The change to which I refer is, of course, a requirement that these notices shall be signed by the proper officer.

However the rule is not without exceptions, albeit very limited. These decisions show that this court is justified in refusing to follow one of its own previous decisions not only where that decision is given in ignorance or forgetfulness of some inconsistent statutory provision or some authority binding upon it, but also, in rare and exceptional cases, if it is satisfied that the decision involved a manifest slip or error.

Seeing that the rules of International Law have changed - and do change - and that the Courts have given effect to the changes without any Act of Parliament, it follows to my mind inexorably that the rules of International Law, as existing from time to time, do form part of our English Law.

This difficulty could however be surmounted if when the Court of Appeal gave leave to appeal from a decision it has felt bound to make by an authority with which it disagreed, it had a power conferred on it by Parliament to order the appellants and/or the respondents' costs of the appeal to be paid out of public funds. This would be a very rare occurrence and the consequent expenditure of public funds would be minimal.

In a common law system, where the law is in some areas made, and the law is in virtually all areas developed, by judges, the doctrine of precedent, or as it is sometimes known stare decisis, is fundamental. Decisions on points of law by more senior courts have to be accepted by more junior courts. Otherwise, the law becomes anarchic, and it loses coherence clarity and predictability.

But in Young's case it was only final judgments of the Court of Appeal which were under consideration. Young's case, which I loyally, if regretfully, accept as binding upon me, dots not, as I think, preclude this Court from declining to follow the ratio decidendi of a previous interlocutory order of the Court of Appeal if this Court thinks that the ratio decidendi was wrong. In the present state of juristic opinion, I would not extend the doctrine of stare decisis any further.