Editing Precedent (section)

===Agreement with precedent===

A counter-argument (in favor of the advantages of ''stare decisis'') is that if the [[legislature]] wishes to alter the case law (other than constitutional interpretations) by [[statute]], the legislature is empowered to do so.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Berland |first=David |url=https://illinoislawreview.org/wp-content/ilr-content/articles/2011/2/Berland.pdf |title=Stopping the Pendulum: Why Stare Decisis Should Constrain the Court from Further Modification of the Search Incident to Arrest Exception |journal=University of Illinois Law Review |year=2011 |volume=2011 |pages=695–740 }}</ref> Critics{{who|date=April 2014}} sometimes accuse particular judges of applying the doctrine selectively, invoking it to support precedent that the judge supported anyway, but ignoring it in order to change precedent with which the judge disagreed<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.open.edu/openlearn/society-politics-law/law/legal-skills-and-debates-scotland/content-section-overview|title=Legal skills and debates in Scotland|website=OpenLearn|language=en|access-date=7 June 2019}}</ref>

There is much discussion about the virtue of using ''stare decisis''. Supporters of the system, such as [[Minimalism (Judicial)|minimalists]], argue that obeying precedent makes decisions "predictable". For example, a business person can be reasonably assured of predicting a decision where the facts of his or her case are sufficiently similar to a case decided previously. This parallels the arguments against retroactive (ex post facto) laws banned by the U.S. Constitution .