不懂先好好学习
Common law (also known as case law or precedent) is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals that decide individual cases, as opposed to statutes adopted through the legislative process or regulations issued by the executive branch.[1][2]
A "common law system" is a legal system that gives great precedential weight to common law,[3] so that consistent principles applied to similar facts yield similar outcomes.[4] The body of past common law binds judges that make future decisions, just as any other law does, to ensure consistent treatment. In cases where the parties disagree on what the law is, a common law court looks to past precedential decisions of relevant courts. If a similar dispute has been resolved in the past, the court is usually bound to follow the reasoning used in the prior decision (this principle is known as stare decisis). If, however, the court finds that the current dispute is fundamentally distinct from all previous cases (called a "matter of first impression"), judges have the authority and duty to make law by creating precedent.[5] Thereafter, the new decision becomes precedent, and will bind future courts. Stare decisis, the principle that cases should be decided according to consistent principled rules so that similar facts will yield similar results, lies at the heart of all common law systems.
