A win for common sense

That's not really close to how it works.

British case law is used to ensure consistent interpretation of law; it's not law itself and
there are varying degrees of court who can decide to follow or reject it. You don't have to go
to Supreme Court to get a bad decision over-turned.

A court may make a bad decision; using case law as a support is a way of the court showing
it's interpreting the law correctly. If it's not interpreting the law correctly the case law
doesn't matter a jot. Saying that the process is like a game of precedents is wrong; they're
just useful tools which lawyers don't have to argue from first principles in every case.

(IANALY)

I think this is purely a decision on the merits of the case. There was a licence, it was not
followed. The legality of the licence was not at stake.

Common law systems that employ the British style to approaching case law follow the maxim of
"stare decisis" - follow what's decided. Coupled with the  principal of precedent, there is no
legal method of creating law in courts.

This is quite different to the European system, where judges play a much more active role in
interpreting and applying the wide definition of statue/past decisions. In the UK courts will
pass judgement on a narrow definition and give leave to appeal to a higher court who may
construe things differently, in favour of 'better law'. This 'better law' is a positive
feedback mechanism - it might be a diservice initially, but when a higher court rules, its
argument makes up precedent and is far more authoritative (or pursuasive depending on the
court and make up of a sister bench) than a case-by-case interpretive approach.

The technique employed is an interesting one. A ruling today should reflect the statue from
which the case was ruled on. If a court starts redefining law (as you see in ECJ law all the
bloody time - ECJ decisions are not bound by precedent) it over steps its constitutional role
as the judicial body, becoming part legislative - this is interfering with the Government.

Now I say all that, but that's not what really happens. Instead we have indirect effects in
British case law, that are purely beneficial. If a court can distinguish a case, it can choose
not to follow the precedent. Quite often, unpopular law will be limited to it's own facts by
subsequent decisions. Sometimes, and this is a rare event, decisions will be overruled - but
such things only happen in the House of Lords. When a court does make a decision that appears
different to either the common law position or statue, it will justify this position. A Judge
or Lord's dicta will introduce the legal abstraction, and then break it down, into smaller
component attributes that make up a legal test or framework. These principals are almost
normally backwardly compatible (who said law and computers don't mix!) with prior decisions.
Hence the effect of creating primary law, from case law.

Modern methods of interpreting law have expanded past the wide and narrow distinctions into
purely interpretive methods. Take Tort law for example (a civil claim against another) - some
of the laws enacted hundreds of years ago have no relevance today, and thus, they are not
applied when they reach significantly high courts. This often happens with a constitutional
consensus - but alas, I'm not on a bench so I can't rightly comment on the inner workings of
the trickier aspects of the law.

The British common law system is undergoing a major revamp at the moment, since the signings
of the Treaty of the European Union, and royal consent give to the Human Rights Act, and
recently the Constitutional Reform Act. Much of what I said will give way to a more
interpretative approach, akin to EC law, since it is now enshrined into UK law. Unfortunately
EC law requires a different approach to development and application. There is already
significant tension between the law Lords and the Government on this principal.

Matt