Then they should know even better that judges don’t make laws, they rule on existing laws, and their rulings get used as precedent.

Yes, and when those precedents are binding, they are called "case law" aka judge-made law. It's not a perjorative, most of the time. It's simply how the law works in countries like the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge-made_law (redirects to "Precedent")