The aim of this article is to explore whether the Constitutional Court of
the Republic of Slovenia is legally bound by its own decisions. First, the
author distinguishes two alternative conceptions of how past judicial decisions
may be relevant to the decision-making of a later court. On the first account,
the court is bound by a previous decision in the sense of only being permitted
to depart from it when reasons
of special kind or weight
obtain, not whenever
it deems that decision
wrong. On the second view,
the court has more latitude: it may always change
its mind on a legal
issue as long as it provides a reasonable
justification for doing so. In the remainder of the article, the author evalu-
ates three arguments in favour of the claim that the first view most faithfully
describes the attitude which the Constitutional Court legally ought to adopt
towards its own decisions.
Key words: precedent,
horizontal precedential effect, stare
decisis, Constitutional Court, overruling, established case law, binding nature
of constitutional decisions,
equal protection of rights.