It isn't a common law country, but there is the concept of precedent, and the majority of sentences will actually not override a previous sentence given the same kind of issue.
I was actually talking about this with a lawyer because of a problem I was having, and that's what he told me. You can pretty safely use precedents to guide you on what you want to do. The difference is that laws tend to of course carry less uncertainty than precedents, and you can't get punished if you were following a law (unless it gets changed retroactively). In case of a trial (in my case, at least), you would admit that you haven't followed the law, but cite the precedents and most likely win.
So, precedents are not binding, but in practice they're close to it.
I think a number of commenters here probably don't understand the culture outside of the US. I'm not judging or saying any one country is better than another, but some places don't place as much credence on the free market and businesses regulating themselves.
In Roman Law, legal precendents are one of the sources of the law system. If there is no explicit regulation about a matter, It is recommended that Judges apply other Judges' decisions. If two Judges at the same level decides differently, the matter is solved in higher courts.
I was actually talking about this with a lawyer because of a problem I was having, and that's what he told me. You can pretty safely use precedents to guide you on what you want to do. The difference is that laws tend to of course carry less uncertainty than precedents, and you can't get punished if you were following a law (unless it gets changed retroactively). In case of a trial (in my case, at least), you would admit that you haven't followed the law, but cite the precedents and most likely win.
So, precedents are not binding, but in practice they're close to it.