What is stare decisis, or precedent?
It is Latin for “to stand by things that have been settled.” It’s the doctrine under which courts adhere to prior decisions on questions of law in order to insure certainty, consistency and stability in the administration of justice. Departure from precedent is supposed to be limited to compelling reasons (as to prevent the perpetuation of injustice). Liberals think that stare decisis is as important as the text of the Constitution. When they condemn someone as a “judicial activist,” they are referring to a person they believe will not blindly adhere to stare decisis and instead will overrule one of their favored decisions, such as Roe v. Wade. Stare decisis, however, isn’t meant to be inflexible. The Court overrules prior decisions it deems to be “wrongly decided”: Fortunately, there is no absolute rule against overruling prior decisions. Brown itself stands as a testament to the fact that we have a living Constitution. And where it becomes clear that a wrongly decided case does damag
