Walker Sons & Co. (U.K.) Ltd. v. Gunatilake and Others – 1978_79_80 volume 1 page 231

Brief
In the case between Walker Sons & Co. (U.K.) Ltd. (Party A) and Gunatilake, the Minister of Labour, the Arbitrator, and others (Party B), the Supreme Court addressed whether prior Supreme Court rulings under the Administration of Justice Law No. 44 of 1973 constituted “unwritten law” within the meaning of Article 168(1) of the Constitution. Additionally, the Court considered whether the Court of Appeal under the 1978 Constitution should be treated as subordinate to the previous Supreme Court for the purposes of stare decisis, and whether a Minister who refers an industrial dispute to arbitration may revoke and re-refer such a dispute. It was determined that the ratio decidendi of prior Supreme Court decisions retained binding force as unwritten law and that stare decisis continued to