Question

What did William Rehnquist mean when he called stare decisis “a cornerstone of our legal system” Do you agree with him? Why?

Answer 1

Stare decisis means referring into older judgements which is similar to the case in consideration. The court will take into account the sentences made by judges in similar cases and precede according it.

William Rehnquist, who served as the chief justice of the United States, said the doctrine of stare decisis a cornerstone of the legal system. It has always been a topic of hot discussion that whether the verdicts and observations should be taken into consideration while hearing a fresh case which may have similarities with an earlier case.

I disagree with this statement of Rehnquist that the doctrine of stare decisis should be applied while judging new cases. Consider if a judge has passed a wrong judgement. Now what happens is, the mistake made by a judge will be repeated in the similar cases the courts will be hearing in future. So the stare decisis cannot be seen as a corner stone of the legal system.

I will give another example. Most of the courts in most of the countries across the world have dismissed petitions asking to make same sex marriages legal. But the modern courts in many countriesin the recent years made the same sex marriage legal, keeping aside the judgements that dismissed such petitions. So, if the courts decide to follow the stare decisis, verdicts allowing same sex marriage would not have been happened.