Legal Predictability Quotes

When you have strong views about how to approach thinking about the law, then that view is going to lead to certain results in certain situations. And so people seem to think this predictability is based on some kind of partisan political view. But it's not.

Many progressives understand Scalia, and other conservative judges, in crassly political terms - as opponents of affirmative action, abortion, gun control, and campaign finance legislation. But what Scalia cared most about was clear, predictable rules, laid down in advance.

If you just technically adhere to the law, sometimes that's enough, sometimes it's not; it's really hard to predict. There is definitely a possibility that the Chinese authorities won't find it sufficient.

“Hard cases make bad law” is another way the tragic vision has been expressed. To help some hard-pressed individual or group whose case is before them, judges may bend the law to arrive at a more benign verdict in that particular case—but at the cost of damaging the whole consistency and predictability of the law, on which millions of other people depend, and on which ultimately the freedom and safety of a whole society depend.

There cannot be a law-abiding society if no one knows in advance what law they are to abide by, but must wait for judges to create ex post facto legal rulings based on “evolving standards” rather than known rules.

It is better that the law should be certain than that every judge should speculate upon improvements in it.

We want laws to be applied predictably.

The principal purpose of stare decisis is to protect reliance interest and further stability in the law.

We recognize that stare decisis embodies an important social policy that represents an element of continuity in law and is rooted in the psychological need to satisfy reasonable expectations.