On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 9:52 PM, Alex Smith <ais...@alumni.bham.ac.uk> wrote: > On Fri, 2017-07-21 at 00:44 -0400, Owen Jacobson wrote: >> Would it be useful to archive Referee decisions and arguments, as we >> do with Calls for Judgement? > > I'm not sure about "useful", given that by definition they have no > precedential value, but it would at least be interesting (and part of > the "story of Agora", which has been discussed as an important export > from the Agoran economy on several occasions recentlyish in a-d). > > -- > ais523
It would, and I disagree with ais523 about their presidential value. To elaborate, I agree that they have no rule recognized value at present, but that is not exactly the same as them lacking value. As I understand it, the non-Agoran origin of the doctrine of precedent is from the common law, where courts saw the importance of achieving consistency. Consistency is a core principle of justice and society, ensuring that cases are decided on the merits of the situation, rather than the feelings of the judge about the person(s) involved. I would guess it arose as custom, and later became binding, as customs so often do. Agora has not adopted this customarily, choosing instead to specify the value of precedent in specific cases by rule. However, an archive would serve several purposes: it would, as ais523 points out, preserve history, but it would also allow traditions of persuasive precedent and consistency to evolve. To be clear, I'm not suggesting we should make this binding, and I think any archive needs to note any CFJs appealing referee decisions, which would have more authority. Overall, I believe the idea has merit. [At a glance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent doesn't seem to contradict me.] -Aris
