ABSTRACT
Finland is a bilingual country, the official languages being Finnish and Swedish. According to the Constitution of Finland, the task of the courts of law is to give a legally binding solution in individual cases. Except for the leave to appeal system, the Supreme Court has another, and a relatively effective, means to select a precedent. In regard to the Supreme Court, the use of precedents must be differentiated from citing them. The Supreme Court has taken an active role to develop law, for instance, in cases of fraudulent acts in connection with bankruptcy. In Finland only the solutions of the Supreme Court have a guiding function as precedents. Bindingness de facto means that precedents are more or less followed regardless of the fact that there is no legal bindingness. In Finland the justificatory rationales of precedents are only exceptionally stated in judicial opinions, very seldom also in the texts of respected writers following the precedents.
