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judges avoid following precedent
Member rating: No Rating | Words: 881 | Submitted: Mon Apr 21 2008
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Outline how judges can avoid following precedent and discuss the advantages of their doing so. Judges can avoid following precedent is a number of ways. Distinguishing is one way, where the material facts of the case are different from a previous one and then the judge does not have to follow the earlier one. This is seen in Balfour v Balfour (1919), where the husband made a verbal agreement of giving his wife £30 a month, while he was away in Ceylon. However he stopped the payments and Mrs Balfour started legal action. It reached the Court of Appeal and they held that there was no enforceable agreement, as there was no evidence for a legally binding promise. So when the case of Merritt and Merritt (1970) came along, where Mr Merritt and Mrs Merritt signed an agreement that he would pay her a monthly sum. When the mortgage of...
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