The boundary between interpretation and creation of law is sometimes so subtle and intangible that the court judgments may give rise to discussions about judges having taken the role of lawmakers. This article reveals the concept of ‘precedent’ in the Lithuanian legal system as the influence of the common law has increased on the continental law and ideas of stare decisis have been transferred to the Lithuanian legal system. The start for this was a famous judgment of 28 March 2006 (...) by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania, where the court held that courts adopting decisions in cases of corresponding categories are bound by their own decisions in analogous cases; the courts of lower instance are bound by the decisions of the courts of higher instance in cases of the same categories. The notion of precedent has been widely used in the decisions of the Supreme Court of Lithuania. Thus, the term “precedent” has become almost as common as ‘judicial decision’. However, it is important to note that in the jurisprudence of Lithuanian courts and legal literature the notion of precedent has a different meaning than in the common law countries. It is, obviously, due to the different principles of the formation of the two systems: the common law and the continental law. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to determine de iure and de facto binding force of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter the ECJ) and its place in the system of legal sources in Latvia. The author concludes that the case law of the ECJ consists of legally important statements, which are included in judgements of the ECJ, namely, of an interpretation of legal norms, made by the ECJ, and of judge-made law norms, which the (...) ECJ has found in legal system by use of a further law-making. Therefore, it follows from the above that the case law of the ECJ is regarded as binding independent addition legal source in Latvia. This publication concerns not only Latvia, but also other European Union (hereinafter the EU) member states of the continental Europe or Romano-Germanic legal system. (shrink)