Precedent – within the area of Court Trials in the Common Law systems (for example, applicable in the US and in England) this term refers to a casein the appellate court, which establishes legal principles to a certain set of facts, coming to a certain conclusion, and which is to be followed from this moment on when similar or identical facts are before a court. Precedent form the basis of the theory of stare decisis which prevent “reinventing the wheel” and allows citizens to have a reasonable expectation of the legal solutions which apply in a given situation. A synonym is “paradigm”.