Thoughts on geotemporal jurisdiction

A well known legal maxim states that judges cannot overturn a prior decision unless it has been shown to be a sure and manifest error. Once a judge has decided a marriage valid, no other judge can declare it otherwise.

If prior rulers and judges have affirmed the permissibility on a matter where there is a difference of opinion, I understand current rulers changing current and future decisions. But I do not understand this practice of voiding the binding decisions of past generations of rulers and judges and then destroying that which had been already decided valid and licit. If the effects of the past decision present a harm, the harm is removed using the absolute minimum force necessary to do so. I also do not understand this practice of dabbling in matters outside one’s own jurisdiction that have already been settled by those appointed by the sovereign authority.

These geo- and temporal- transgressions create and spread dispute, dissension and division. The role of rulers and judges is to settle and remove the above—not to revive and introduce them.

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