Lists of landmark court decisions

As a policy decision, judgments and orders upper or supreme courts are referred to clarify the legal issues of fundamental interest for the first time or making a major fundamental change in the interpretation of applicable law.

Importance of policy decisions

In legal systems which are constructed according to the case law, policy decisions have the effect of a precedent and bind other courts in their future decision-making. Because of their prominent position a very high importance to policy decisions. Subordinate Courts must in compliance with the stare decisis principle, the decision to apply in similar cases, as it claims, the higher court.

In legal systems that are based on codified law, policy decisions on the individual case, also have no direct binding effect. The reason for this lies in the view that the legislative deserve only the legislature and judges should not be restricted in their independence. In practice, policy decisions of other courts are nevertheless often considered in the interpretation of laws, not to infringe the principle of legal certainty.

Policy decisions in Germany

In the German legal system policy decisions usually fall to the supreme courts and the Federal Constitutional Court. Due to the special legal nature of the Federal Constitutional Court rulings have some immediate force of law and thus binding effect inter omnes.

  • Mr. Reiter's case: The Federal Court ruled in 1958 that is entitled to monetary compensation in significant injury of the general right, contrary to the wording of the law.
  • Rügeverkümmerung: The Federal Court ruled in 2007 that the protocol can also be corrected through the trial of criminal proceedings under an appeal, in retrospect, if thereby a complaint remove the underlying causes ( so-called " Rügeverkümmerung "). For a hundred years of case law has been repealed, which held a rectification of the record in such cases to be inadmissible.
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