A court decision is a ruling reached by the judge of a case based on facts and law. The decision usually consists of a syllabus and several opinions, or rulings of the judges in the case. The decision may also include a court order.
Judicial decisions are important in the sense that they carry precedence value until a higher court ruling overrules them. This precedence is based on the legal system’s doctrine of stare decisis, which requires judges to adhere to a previous decision in a similar type of case unless there is a legislative statute or higher court ruling that overrules it.
However, a previous decision does not necessarily hold the highest importance or relevance in a new case if it is not relevant to the circumstances in which the new case arises. Judges who have a heavy caseload might opt for support of their decision making with a more recent precedent, one that is highly similar to the case at hand, or one which has been cited in other cases (to be discussed below).
It is therefore crucial to understand the notion of the importance of a decision, or how judges determine whether a given judicial decision is relevant or not. Various authors have tried to name, explain and operationalize the concept of importance or relevance of a judicial decision, but it appears that this is a very context dependent process. Some decisions might be more prestigious, appear in more collections of decisions or student textbooks, or have more authority or jurisprudential influence than others.