Legal Precedent Rule Relaxed

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31124, 29 July 1966, Page 10

Legal Precedent Rule Relaxed

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, July 28. The House of Lords today relaxed its centuries-old rule of legal precedent in a bid to keep up with the times.

A spokesman for the Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner — Speaker of the House and head of the Judiciary—said: “Too rigid adherence to precedent may lead to injustice in a particular case and also unduly restrict the proper development of the law." Under the traditional precedent system, past legal decisions were binding in rulings on similar cases—unless overruled by long-drawn-out Parliamentary legislation. Now the judges are ready to modify the system to bring British practice into line with that of superior courts in other Commonwealth countries. While treating former decisions of the House as normally binding, the spokesman said, the judges would

depart from a previous decision when it appeared right to do so—for instance when an earlier decision was influenced by outdated conditions. The spokesman said: “The relaxation of the rule of judicial precedent will enable the House of Lords to pay greater attention to judicial decisions reached in the superior courts of the Commonwealth, where they differ from earlier decisions of the House of Lords. “The superior courts of many other countries are not rigidly bound by their own decisions and the change in the practice of the House of Lords will bring us more into line with them.” The spokesman explained that the decision concerned no particular case in hand, nor a particular question, such as extradition.