This paper explores the important role of judicial precedents in Korea whose body of laws is generally considered to be based on the European Continental Legal System under which court decisions are not regarded as a source of law. This paper first ex...
This paper explores the important role of judicial precedents in Korea whose body of laws is generally considered to be based on the European Continental Legal System under which court decisions are not regarded as a source of law. This paper first examines the binding force of judicial precedents in Anglo-American countries. It then explores how judicial precedents of the Korean Supreme Court came to have binding force. Momentum for such phenomenon was provided by Article 3 of the Small Claims Act, which was promulgated in 1973. Article 3 of the Small Claims Act provides that when a judgment of the appellate court contravenes judicial precedents of the Supreme Court, there exists a justifiable ground to make an appeal to the Supreme Court. Finally, this paper deals with ``ratio decidendi`` by introducing theories on the concept of it and then examining statements of law made in Korean Supreme Court decisions.