Abstract

Through exercising its power in determining the basis of actions of the federal government actions, the Supreme Court has developed a more extensive body to interpret the constitution. The way the courts use the precedent has been a massive debate and have faced controversies by many lawyers. People have questioned whether the Supreme Court should follow the rules that are identified in the decisions before they have been done away with. The treatment of the supreme court on the precedent implies to the cases that can be maintained in terms of the stability through adhering to the precedence to correct decisions that are deemed unright. Unworkable standards and the legal doctrine that has been abandoned. The main role of this paper is to explore the existing relationship between judicial reviews and stare decisis, and how much should the justices keep up to stare decisis in the decisions.

Keywords: Supreme Court, constitution, court decisions, stare decicis, legal doctrine, precedents decisions, justices.

The Supreme Court has been involved in the ultimate decisions of the government and has the power to determine the actions of the federal and states government as to whether they are adhering to the constitution or not. It has therefore developed the large body of the judicial decisions called precedents that are used in interpreting the constitution.  The rules and the principles that had to develop earlier are used in future decisions (judicial report, 1). Nonetheless, the role of the precedents in court decisions is always controversial when used in determining whether the courts should use the prior decisions to follow the precedents. These issues underscore some of the major challenges of the court in maintaining the law and adhering to the precedents under the stare decisis doctrine so that the parties can depend on it in terms of coming up with the decisions. The other complication is whether the courts should rest their decisions on faulty reasoning. Even though the decision of the court in retaining the precedence that has prompted significant debate, the overruling precedents may not be easy because of the differences in the opinions.  This leads to various amendments that restrict further action. Stare decisis is a doctrine that the court follows based on the provided principles and the standards that had been established before the decisions of the higher tribunals and while arguing in the same facts. There are exceptions especially when there is a stronger ground or special justification for overruling a decision. In such a case, the supreme court may refrain from overruling a decision. As a result, the court has rejected the view that is quite formalized in stare decisis that needs adherence to the prior decisions despite the merits in the practical implications.

Work cited

Everycrsreport “The Supreme Court’s Overruling of Constitutional Precedent.” EveryCRSReport.com, Congressional Research Service, 24 Sept. 2018, www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45319.html.