Context: As federal judge Alex Kozinski has pointed out, binding precedent as we know it today simply did not exist at the time the Constitution was framed. Judicial decisions were not consistently, accurately, and faithfully reported on both sides of the Atlantic (reporters often simply rewrote or failed to publish decisions which they disliked), and the United Kingdom lacked a coherent court hierarchy prior to the end of the 19th century. Furthermore, English judges in the eighteenth century subscribed to now-obsolete natural law theories of law, by which law was believed to have an existence independent of what individual judges said. Judges saw themselves as merely declaring the law which had always theoretically existed, and not as making the law. Therefore, a judge could reject another judge's opinion as simply an incorrect statement of the law, in the way that scientists regularly reject each other's conclusions as incorrect statements of the laws of science.

Question: Who has noted that binding precedent did not exist when the Constitution was written?
Answer: federal judge Alex Kozinski

Question: Why were decisions not reported or recoded correctly?
Answer: reporters often simply rewrote or failed to publish decisions which they disliked

Question: What are the natural theories of law that that the English judges in the eighteenth century used?
Answer: law was believed to have an existence independent of what individual judges said

Question: Why could one judge reject another judges opinion?
Answer: saw themselves as merely declaring the law which had always theoretically existed, and not as making the law

Question: Why would one judge reject another's opinion?
Answer: incorrect statement of the law

Question: What began at the time the Constitution was framed?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: What was the name of the judge who believed he was declaring a pre-existing law?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: When did the natural law theory fall out of fashion?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: Reporters were not allowed to prevent publication based on what?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: What did the the UK courts in the end of the 19th century?
Answer: Unanswerable