1. When driving his car home in Georgetown, Ryan called and talked with his wife through his mobile phone without the use of hands-free device. While talking, he lost control over his car and eventually hit a walking pedestrian.

– Is Ryan liable under civil or criminal law?

Ryan is liable under the criminal law as he offended against the state by hitting a walking pedestrian and he is found guilty.

– Should this case go to court, what will be Ryan’s right?

This case should go to criminal court and Ryan’s right is an accused maybe convicted if he is guilty and acquitted if he is innocent.

– What should the pedestrian do to recover his injuries/loss?

The pedestrian can claim the fine from Ryan in order to recover his injuries/loss.

2. Geena runs an unregistered online investment portal from her home in KL where she managed to get people deposit money to her account. It was discovered that the investment was a scam and she attempted to flee with the money, only to be arrested in the airport by immigration officers because she held a fake passport.

– Determine Geena’s liability: civil or criminal?

Civil liability.

– What law(s) and statutes you think Geena has violated?

Civil law as she disputes between private individuals. Besides, she did hold a fake passport and attempted to flee with the money.

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the doctrine of Stare Decisis for the development of law?

The advantages of the doctrine of Stare Decisis are it's the job of courts to interpret the laws, and to apply them to specific types of situations. And for stability sake, those decisions must have binding authority on lower courts through precedence. It's also the job of the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution, which includes applying that interpretation nationally.
The only alternative to having the Supreme Court not create precedent that is binding nationally is to throw away the doctrine of precedent entirely. That means that any court can come up with any interpretation, regardless of how the law was interpreted in the past. If the legislature wanted consistency, then the legislatures would have to modify and update the laws, based upon every interpretation that was decided by the courts. Every law would be constantly in flux, as the legislature tweaked wording and added exceptions into the statutes. So, either legislators would constantly need to update laws to reflect and include every possible later specific interpretation, or we lose any concept of stability and predictability in the legal system. To avoid this, the English Common Law (and its American and Australian counterparts) allowed Judges to have their interpretations be independently binding, as case precedent. This way, the branch of government which is making the interpretations, the judiciary, is responsible for publishing and organizing its own common law declarations, rather than forcing the legislature to constantly be doing that. Remove the ability of the courts to make law and you drastically weaken the stability of the entire legal system.

The disadvantages of the doctrine of Stare Decisis are Supporters of the system, such as minimalists, argued that obeying precedent makes decisions "predictable." For example, a business person can be reasonably assured of predicting a decision where the facts of his or her case are sufficiently similar to a case decided previously. However, critics argue that stare decisis is an application of the argument from authority logical fallacy and can result in the preservation and propagation of cases decided wrongly. Another argument often used against the system is that it is undemocratic as it allows unelected judges to make law. A counter-argument (in favor of the concept of stare decisis) is that if the legislature wishes to alter the case law (other than constitutional interpretations) by statute, the legislature is empowered to do so. Critics sometimes accuse particular judges of applying the doctrine selectively, invoking it to support precedents which the judge supported anyway, but ignoring it in order to change precedents with which the judge disagreed.

The advantages and disadvantages of the doctrine of Stare Decisis helps to improve the development of law yet there is still happens to have disadvantages of it.