Judicial Precedent and Lex Sportiva. In search of harmonisation, consistency and legal certainty.

The chapter examines the particular and unique elements of practice and procedure before the Court of Arbitration for Sport and explains that such practice has several similarities with the traditions of common law systems. The chapter critically assesses specific elements of practice such as the standard of proof, examination of witnesses, the use of presumptions and negative inferences, along with the use by CAS Panels of previous decisions and concludes that although there is no declared system of binding precedent, in practice, CAS Panels, silently, operate a form of such binding precedent. This chapter calls for ICAS to declare a system of binding precedent before the CAS, which will uniformly apply to national adjudicating panels, and suggests that such a system will restore certainty, predictability, consistency and clarity.