The difficult question is whether federal judicial power extends to formulating binding precedent through strict adherence to the rule of stare decisis. This is where the act of deciding a case becomes a limited form of lawmaking in itself, in that <answer>an appellate court's rulings will thereby bind itself and lower courts in future cases</answer> (and therefore also impliedly binds all persons within the court's jurisdiction). Prior to a major change to federal court rules in 2007, about one-fifth of federal appellate cases were published and thereby became binding precedents, while the rest were unpublished and bound only the parties to each case.
Why is stare decisis a limited form of lawmaking?
an appellate court's rulings will thereby bind itself and lower courts in future cases