JUDICIAL PRECEDENT AS A SOURCE OF LAW IN THE ANGLO-AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM

The article deals with the issue of the features of the system of sources of law in various legal systems, which were formed in accordance with local traditions, taking into account external influences. One of the main problems considered in this article is the determination of the place of judicial precedent in the Anglo-American legal system, its significance in solving a particular case. This study raises the issue of the history of the emergence, development of judicial precedent as a legal phenomenon, its constituent elements and their role as an auxiliary element in the creation of the rule of law by the court and law enforcement, regardless of the level of the judiciary in the countries of the Anglo-American legal system. Unlike the system of sources of law in the continental legal system, where the main source of law is a law or a codified legal act, in the Anglo-American legal system, it is judicial precedent that is the main source of law, as a manifestation of common law. Historically, due to the large number of cases that needed to be decided first by non-professional judges, and then by qualified lawyers and the underdevelopment of the legal framework, such persons had to carry out an extensive interpretation of legal norms and sometimes create new ones with their own hands, interpreting them each time. So, after a certain period of time, the lawyers unified the decision of the judges, such collections became important when the court could refer to an already decided plot with the same factual circumstances and apply the «ratio decidendi» in a new case. After such a rapid development of judicial law in the Anglo-American legal system, it became quite clear that not only the highest courts can create a judicial precedent by their decision, but other courts of the general system have the right to do so: as courts of first instance (district courts), as well as appellate courts and, for example, the US Supreme Court. This raises the question of the legal force of such precedents, depending on the level of the court that created it. Therefore, this question is the next one, which is considered in this article. An important factor is the use of the comparative method of studying the above issues, and therefore a rather interesting point in the analysis of information is the comparison of the essence of judicial precedent in the continental legal system and the Anglo-American legal system.