The fact that a certain decision is produced by a court in Spain, that does not mean others in the future have to abide by it as you clearly point out yourself. Yes, in Portugal and Spain sometimes judges indeed refer to previous decisions taken by other courts, but they do so at their discretion. This is the key issue here.

The reason for this post to have been written in the PT channel of TheNextWeb was explained in one of my previous comments.

There is always a “black swan” lurking somewhere waiting to pop up.

I was careful with the wording chosen on that sentence. For instance, I mentioned civil law “country” and not “system” to avoid situations such as the one you identify (although I’m happy to confess being unaware of Quebec’s in advance) where a country has more than one system and compromises have to be made between both for articulation sake. I also used as examples “England and Wales” and not the “UK” on purpose (since they are countries and Scotland has a mixed system).

Further to the point I tried to be clear and straight without overbearing detail or legalese jargon. The category I had in my head while writing was “European civil law countries from a French matrix” but thought it would bring more confusion than explanation to the bulk of our readers.

Hope this explains it more clearly.

This is not true. Quebec uses the civil code, inherited from France, while the rest of Canada uses common law, and Quebecs civil court system certainly recognizes judicial precedents set in other Quebec courts.

@Damiansen
It was posted in the PT channel because there is where I write, although the aim had been for it to be pulled to the main channel (as it happened). Not because we are the 19th province of Spain .