this court may not have any lower courts, in which case you'd be right - albeit for the wrong reason.
Actually, that was precisely what I was saying. It's obvious to me that a local traffic court has no lower courts below it.
In addition, to be a precedent, the decision needs to be published (as I understand it, but IANAL). When you think about it, this must be true: no court can follow a precedent that cannot be discovered.
He might have simply meant that he didn't want to set any precedents for future rulings by himself; i.e., start handing out free passes to anyone with a smartphone.
