Legal Definitions - judge-made law

Definition: Judge-made law is the law that is established by judicial precedent rather than by statute. It is also the law that results when judges interpret statutes differently from what the lawmakers intended. This is also known as common law.

Examples:

• One example of judge-made law is the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, even though there was no specific law that said so.
• Another example is the case of Roe v. Wade, where the Supreme Court established a woman's right to have an abortion based on the right to privacy, even though there was no specific law that granted this right.

These examples illustrate how judges can create new laws or change existing ones through their interpretation of the Constitution and other laws. This is why judge-made law is sometimes referred to as judicial activism or judicial legislation.