Case law in a legal system are those laws based on previous judicial decisions. This is opposed to decisions based on existing statutes or regulations. In countries using common law, it is generally uncodified meaning there are no collections of legal rules and laws to rely on. Instead they rely on legal precedent. Precedents are previous legal cases that are used as examples for deciding the present case. They are also binding on lower courts where the facts and issues are similar. In countries that use civil law, their laws are codified and there is much less reliance on case law. 