POLB50Y3 Lecture Notes - United States Territorial Court, Wok, Precedent
Document Summary
This chapter examines the judiciary as an institution of the government, discussing the function of adjudication, categories of laws, the structure of the courts, the supreme court of canada, and the appointment, retirement, removal and independence of judges. Adjudication can be defined as interpreting the law in cases of dispute, of settling disputes by applying the law to them, or of making a judgement based on the law. The function of the judiciary is to render formal, impartial, authoritative judgements in the case of legal disputes between two parties that cannot be settled otherwise. It is a process that generally relies on the adversarial system, with lawyers representing each side. The judge obviously acts like a referee and decides which of the disputants is legally right. Obviously we have french civil law and english common law in canada. The principle that precedents are binding on successive decisions is called stare decisis.
