Revirimentul jurisprudenţial între sistemul de drept anglo-american şi sistemul de drept continental
The overrulling between the anglo-american law system and the continental law system

Summary/Abstract: Pronouncing an overruling decision is not easy, considering that the judge must take into account the need for change, the evolution of the law, as well as the stability and predictability of those who relied on the case law that is to be changed. The discussion becomes even more interesting when the judgement is not binding precedent, as it happens in continental law systems. One of the biggest differences between the continental system and the Anglo-American one is the role of the judge and thus the judgement effects of the court decision. While within the common law systems, based on the stare decisis doctrine, the court decision has the value of a binding precedent for both the inferior and the same court, within the continental systems, the case law is not a law source and, therefore, the judgeʼs decision is only binding for the parts of the file (res judicata). However, in the continental systems there is a fidelity of the courts regarding their own case law, an approach that becomes close to that of the precedent found in common law systems. In this context, the analysis of how the overruling is seen in different law systems and the conditions that judges from different law traditions take into account in order to overrule a previous decision can be interesting especially in countries where the judges have a traditional reluctance to pronounce overruling decisions, such as the Romanian one. The purpose of this study is to analyse how the overruling is received in countries where the judgement has a value of a binding precedent (e.g., England and United States), as well as in the continental systems where the judgement does not have the value of a binding precedent, where we took as examples the French and the Italian systems. Our approach is to carry out a brief historical-evolutionary analysis for each of the mentioned countries regarding the role of the judge, the value of the judgement and the way in which the overruling is seen today.

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