You have been charged with an offence under the provincial Sport Fishers Act and

Question

You have been charged with an offence under the provincial Sport Fishers Act and went to BC Provincial Court yourself to fight it.  You brought along a copy of a case from the BC Supreme Court, which contained virtually the same facts as your situation and provided you with a good defense.  When you showed the case to the judge, she looked at it and said "I have no use for you illegal fishers, but I must follow this case and find you not guilty." What principle of our legal system does this example illustrate?  Explain whether the judge was correct in applying the principle.

Its business law question

Explanation / Answer

Often the jurisdiction authorities refer to this scenario as " Case Citation ". Legal citations often describes the case that either substantiates or contradicts the current situation. Practitioners do take reference to these legal citations, while defending their cases.

The other common term used in a similar situation is "Precedent". It is usually a rule / law being set by a court in a smiliar situation in the past, which is to be followed by ruling authorities for all subsequent similar cases.

In the situation given above, it is a clear scenario of "Case Citations". The protagonist is depicted to refer to a previous case that has similar facts and situation. The Provincial Court will take this as a valid input from Supreme Court (which is the higher legal authority in this case).

The question does not give details of the current situation or the refered situation from the past. So,it is diffcult to say whether case citation was relevant and completely correct or not. Thus it is diffuclt to comment on whether the judge was correct in applying the principle. If we assume, that both the situations and facts are exactly same, then taking Precedent into account, we can safely say that the judge did take a correct step.

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