ABSTRACT
Case law, or common law, refers to the creation and refinement of law in the course of judicial decisions. The doctrine of binding precedent, or stare decisis, lies at the heart of the English legal system. The doctrine refers to the fact that, within the hierarchical structure of the English courts, a decision of a higher court will be binding on a court lower than it in that hierarchy. In general terms, this means that, when judges try cases, they will check to see whether a similar situation has come before a court previously. It is apparent that the operation of binding precedent is reliant upon the existence of an extensive reporting service to provide access to previous judicial decisions. This situation was at last remedied by the establishment of the Council for Law Reporting in 1865, subsequently registered as a corporate body in 1870 under the name of the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales.
