The higher court’s strict adherence to its previous constitutional legal positions causes natural concerns if the court does not take into account that these positions may turn out to be erroneous. At the same time, any judgment on the existence of an error involves an appeal to some criteria that allow it to be identified. They, in turn, are dictated by the general methodology of constitutional interpretation adopted by the judges. The article examines the doctrine of “special justification” developed by the courts of Common Law systems. On the one hand, this doctrine allows for an overruling when the precedent is erroneous in the light of the new results of a realistic interpretation of the constitution; on the other hand, it requires determining objective factors that led to changing the results of such an interpretation.