Hi! Could someone please explain what judicial guidelines are? Thank you
Hey Chelsea! Speaking basically, judicial guidelines are precedents, prior judicial decisions that a judge might use (or may be required to use) in forming their decision for the case in front of them!
Guideline judgments are means by which a superior court may provide
guidance to other courts over the exercise of judicial discretion,
e.g. sentencing etc. The judgments are there to guide and
not dictate, unlike precedents which may bind. In short, they are two different things. For some helpful recent judicial discussion on this, see
R v Wong [1999] NSWCCA - 'As was explicitly stated ... a sentencing guideline is indicative only. A guideline may be departed from and it is not binding in any formal sense
nor does it constitute a rule of law [unlike precedents] (see Jurisic at 220; Henry at [25] - [30] and [42]).' This case ended up in the HCA and the plurality judgment there also referred to the above statement, merely suggesting further that they should at least always be considered [43].