... not at liberty to reject or abandon precedents even if they feel that those rules were not as convenient or reasonable as they would have liked them to be. Till today, the reasons for its use are still valid in most cases, thus, the doctrine is regarded as a general rule in the UK. An example of the doctrine of binding precedent can be seen in the case of Shaw v. DPP which relates to conspiracy to corrupt public morals, where the decision was followed by Knuller v. DPP. Although the doctrine of stare decisis seems quite similar to res judicata, which also means 'to stand by past decisions', there is a slight variation. The difference between the two would be that when applying the res judicata principle, the decisions of the courts will be binding on future courts unless it is reversed, whilst the doctrine of stare decisis, established ...

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