Supreme court case law
Supreme court case law is the entirety of legally binding decisions of the supreme instances , in Germany that is, decisions of the Federal Court of Justice , the Federal Labor Court , the Federal Administrative Court , the Federal Social Court and the Federal Fiscal Court . In some cases, this also includes decisions by the higher regional courts , provided that they are the final instance. More recently, this includes decisions by the European Court of Justice .
In the continental European legal system, the highest court rulings are of considerable importance for the interpretation of the law , since the other courts usually orient themselves on it. In the Anglo-Saxon legal system, the highest judicial decisions are theoretically much more important, since in case law no contradiction to decisions by higher authorities is permitted. The rulings of the highest judges therefore have greater effects than precedents . In practice, however, the significance of the highest court decisions in Germany is similar to that in legal theory, which is much higher in Anglo-Saxon law.
The decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court represent a special case , as they can develop legal force in Germany and thus bind other courts.
Be distinguished from the supreme courts are high court decisions that will be made going from higher courts, although not the final arbiter of their respective stages of appeal are (in Germany about higher regional courts, regional labor courts , state social courts and administrative courts of appeal and administrative courts ) and first-instance decisions of the input courts .
The higher court decisions have a similar meaning to the highest court decisions in which there are (yet) no highest court decisions. This mainly applies to areas of law that are regulated by state law and are therefore not revisable (verifiable) by the highest court federal courts. In civil law, for example, this is a large part of private neighboring law ; in administrative courts, it is a large part of police law .
Individual evidence
- ↑ On German law, cf. BGH, decision of March 5, 2009, Az. IX ZR 90/06 , NJW 2009, 1422 (1423) with additional information on the case law.
