Common law system ,as the another side of civil law system which is mainly based on code system,usually applies the earlier case decided by the court decision which laid a legal principle known as doctrine of precedent .Thus, this legal system views decision of the court as a major source of law. Common law system emerged in English and exported around the world wherever British influence dominated.The legal system of the USA,and the “old ”commonwealth countries, are all based on the English common law.
The doctrine of precedent which is a fundamental principle of common law legal system means that the judges normally follow the legal rules created by the judge in earlier case where judge have made the legal rule known as precedent.
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Common law system is a representative of legal system in which judges make law .The cases which the judges decide applies many doctrines such as the doctrine of precedent as the a fundamental rule . Owing to this legal system, it brings about many advantages such as convenient saving-time device,certainty and consistently Firstly, the way that judges apply doctrine of binding of precedent play an important role to act as a convenient saving-time device for the the common law system. It is simply said that if there is a the similar case ,the judges should be decided in the similar manner.In reality,there are no exactly the same case.The court only consider the general rule underly the case known as ratio decidendi whether it is in accordance with the past decision or not.And the ratio decidendi will relate to the next following case until the case is avoid by the judge by means of distinguishing,reversing and overruling .For example,in the case of Donoghue v Stevenson[1932] AC 562,the House of Lords held that a manufacturer owed a duty of care to the ultimate consumer of the product. This set a binding precedent which was followed in Grant v Australian Knitting Mills [1936] AC