Doctrine of Stares Decisis in Nigeria: A Step to Conclusion

Abstract

Sometimes, one has the privilege of writing papers on existing topics like torture and targeted killing, hate speech and hedgehogs. But sometimes one has to pick up a shovel and go back to the dark, featureless coalface of basic jurisprudence. This is such a paper. There is nothing exciting about it except that it addresses an elementary issue that everyone agrees has not been properly resolved and that we will need to think about. Stare decisis has been called many things, among them “a principle of policy”, “a series of prudential and pragmatic consideration”, and simply “the preferred course”. This paper focuses on stare decisis with respect to often overlooked fact that stare decisis is also a step to conclusion. The simple reason for this is that principles established by previous cases are not, however, inviolable. For example, when a court is sufficiently convinced that a previous decision was erroneous, the court may overrule that decision. This paper will conclude that stare decisi is a principle of decision making, not a rule and need not be applied when the precedent at issue is unworkable or badly reasoned.

Keywords: Constitution, Court, Judgment, Precedent, Ratio Decidendi , Stare Decisis,

DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/92-03

Publication date: December 31^st 2019