Discuss the argument for giving greater freedom to court of appeal to depart from past precedence.

        The Court of Appeal is able to go against past precedence on various occasions for many different reasons, which have been allocated to them in order to ensure that justice is done without having to change the way in which precedence is arranged. This rule was actually put into place as a result of Young v Bristol Aeroplane Co Ltd 1944 whereby the exceptions to go against precedence were identified.  Where there were conflicting decisions in previous cases which had taken place within the Court of Appeal where it is left up to the court to decide which of the decisions it will follow they could go against past precedence. However, where there had been decision made by the House of Lords which overrules a court of appeal decision the court of appeal must follow the decision of the House of Lords. Finally, for the reason that it was generally felt that the decision was a mistake and that it was carelessly made because a relevant act of parliament or other regulation had not been considered by the court. These three different exceptions provided the court of appeal with greater freedom effectively, but this has lead to many criticisms as well as responses suggesting that it’s a good thing that the court of appeal have been offered some leeway to make significant decisions.

        The strengths of being given greater freedom would be that firstly very little amount of cases actually reach the House of Lords and therefore they are not able to alter their decision until they are faced with another suitable case whereby they are able to change their previous decision. The downfall of this is firstly that this could mean that it might take many years before another case, which is appropriate to that subject, appears and until then all the courts below the House of Lords are bound by their decision. Therefore cannot apply what they feel would be suitable until the decision made by the House of Lords is altered. Therefore it would help if the House of Lords were able to have the power of altering precedence when they feel necessary in order to prevent any form of injustice from taking place.

        The fact that not many courts are given the right to appeal to the house of lords could mean that they may face injustice if they appeal to the court of appeal and are given a conviction or claim that they must pay because of past precedence. This could be more significant if the issue is related to criminal law as opposed to civil law as it could lead to a firmer ‘penalty’. So in relation to the argument that the house of lords hears cases on a rare basis it may lead to the conclusion that until a significant case is presented injustice may be done. So the fact that the court of appeal can go against past precedence and change the law when necessary such as where it is felt that the previous decision was a mistake or carelessly made because an act of court or regulations had not been considered properly for example.