Where English law comes from, how its sources rank against one another, and the rules of precedent that determine which past decisions a court must follow.
Behind every judgment lies a structure that dictates which authorities count and which give way. This chapter begins with the principal sources of English law, the several meanings of 'common law', parliamentary sovereignty and what happens when statute, common law and equity collide, before contrasting common law and equitable remedies and the discretion that governs the latter. It then works through the doctrine of precedent: what makes a decision binding, the line between ratio and obiter, how the binding effect plays out court by court, and the routes for escaping a precedent — distinguishing, the per incuriam exception, overruling and reversing. It closes with persuasive authority, the limits on judicial law-making for novel issues, and the special interpretive duties created by the Human Rights Act and the post-Brexit treatment of retained EU case law.
