NAME STEWARD OIGO

REG NO. EN264-0770/2015

SCHOOL: COETEC
DEPARTMENT: BEED
UNIT ENGINEERS IN THE SOCIETY
UNIT CODE: EBE 2507

Do judges make law

Presently a judge’s role is not to make law but to uphold the laws which are made by the
parliament as per the constitution. Judges freedom is restricted by the rules of precedent.
Doctrine of judiciary to the English common law system. Which means for a judge to decide a
case, he/she must look for a precedent to help them reach their decision. Law made by judges is
an independent source of law in common law systems. To jurists brought up in legal systems
which have codified law this is one of the striking features of the common law tradition. Instead
of interpreting a code to develop the law, common law judges develop the law which their
predecessors have made. While statute law now impinges on many areas of private law, large
tracts of our private law remain predominantly the product of judicial decisions
Dworkin also said that judges have no real discretion in making case law. He sees law as a
seamless web of principles, which supply a right answer and only one to every possible problem.
However, in the present society, judges have a considerable scope for growth and development
of common law.
Parliament has also used statute to codify rules which judges have made in order to make them
more accessible. For example, in the later nineteenth century and early twentieth century,
enactments on bills of exchange, the sale of goods, partnership and marine insurance sought to
codify judge-made law and, although subject to some criticism, have stood the test of time. As
the judges’ pursuit of justice has on occasion interfered with the logic and symmetry, which
Dicey admired, and has damaged the coherence of the common law. But the discipline of
preserving the logic and symmetry of the law is both a spur to and an important restraint on
judicial law-making. Judicial law-making is therefore constrained law-making
References
Lu, D. (2019). AI judges make good calls on human rights violations but could be gamed.
Barry, B. M. (2020). How Judges Judge: Empirical Insights into Judicial Decision-Making.
Taylor & Francis.
Oren-Kolbinger, O. (2020). Do Tax Judges Think About the Economy?. Available at SSRN
3427957.
Burgers, L. (2020). Should Judges Make Climate Change Law?. Transnational Environmental
Law, 9(1), 55-75.