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Regulatory Offences
In criminal law, a regulatory offence or quasi-criminal offence is a class of crime in which the standard for proving culpability has been lowered so a (Law Latin for "guilty mind") element is not required. Such offences are used to deter potential offenders from dangerous behaviour rather than to impose punishment for moral wrongdoing. Absolute liability offences An absolute liability offence is a type of criminal offence that does not require any fault elements (''mens rea'') to be proved in order to establish guilt. The prosecution only needs to show that the accused performed the prohibited act (''actus reus''). As such, absolute liability offences do not allow for a defense of mistake of fact. Due to the ease in which the offence can be proven, only select offences are of this type. In most legal systems, absolute liability offences must be clearly labeled as such in the criminal code or criminal legislation. Public welfare offences A public welfare offence is a crime for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law is established by statute, which is to say that the laws are enacted by a legislature. Criminal law includes the punishment and rehabilitation of people who violate such laws. Criminal law varies according to jurisdiction, and differs from civil law, where emphasis is more on dispute resolution and victim compensation, rather than on punishment or rehabilitation. Criminal procedure is a formalized official activity that authenticates the fact of commission of a crime and authorizes punitive or rehabilitative treatment of the offender. History The first civilizations generally did not distinguish between civil law and criminal law. The first written codes of law were designed by the Sumerians. Around 2100–2050 BC Ur-Nammu, the N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Culpability
In criminal law, culpability, or being culpable, is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held morally or legally responsible for action and inaction. It has been noted that the word, culpability, "ordinarily has normative force, for in nonlegal English, a person is culpable only if he is justly to blame for his conduct". Culpability therefore marks the dividing line between moral evil, like murder, for which someone may be held legally responsible, and a randomly occurring event, like naturally occurring earthquakes or naturally arriving meteorites, for which no human can be held responsible. Etymology Culpability descends from the Latin concept of fault ('' culpa''). Concept The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions of agency, freedom, and free will. All are commonly held to be necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for culpability. In law From a legal perspective, culpability describes the degree of one's ''blamew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mens Rea
In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action (or lack of action) would cause a crime to be committed. It is considered a necessary element of many crimes. The standard common law test of criminal Legal liability, liability is expressed in the Latin phrase ,1 Subst. Crim. L. § 5.1(a) (3d ed.) i.e. "the act is not Culpability, culpable unless the mind is guilty". As a general rule, someone who acted without mental Fault (law), fault is not liable in criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ....". . . a person is not guilty of an offense unless he acted purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently, as the law may require, with respect to each material eleme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Law Latin
Law Latin, sometimes written L.L. or L. Lat., and sometimes derisively called Dog Latin, is a form of Latin used in legal contexts. While some of the vocabulary does come from Latin, many of the words and much of the vocabulary stem from English. Law Latin may also be seen as consisting of a mixture of English, French and Latin words superimposed over an English syntax. Law Latin was the language in which the legal opinions of English courts were recorded at least until the reign of George II. Under his reign, the Proceedings in Courts of Justice Act 1730 (effective from 1733), mandated that all records of legal proceedings in England were to be made in English rather than Latin. Law Latin was also used as the language of writs, royal charters, letters patent and many other legal instruments. As late as 1867, Law Latin was still in use in England and Scotland for some legal instruments. See also * Law French * List of legal Latin terms * Traditional English pronunciation of Lati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Punishment
Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular action or behavior that is deemed undesirable or unacceptable. It is, however, possible to distinguish between various different understandings of what punishment is. The reasoning for punishment may be to condition a child to avoid self-endangerment, to impose social conformity (in particular, in the contexts of compulsory education or military discipline), to defend norms, to protect against future harms (in particular, those from violent crime), and to maintain the law—and respect for rule of law—under which the social group is governed. and violates the law or rules by which the group is governed. Punishment may be self-inflicted as with self-flagellation and mortification of the flesh in the religious setting, but is mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Actus Reus
(), sometimes called the external element or the objective element of a crime, is the Law Latin term for the "guilty act" which, when proved beyond a reasonable doubt in combination with the ("guilty mind"), produces criminal liability in the common law−based criminal law jurisdictions of England and Wales, Canada, Australia, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, New Zealand, Scotland, Nigeria, Ghana, Ireland, Israel and the United States of America. In the United States, some crimes also require proof of attendant circumstances and/or proof of a required result directly caused by the . Definitions The terms and developed in English law are derived from the principle stated by Edward Coke, namely, ("an act does not make a person guilty unless (their) mind is also guilty"); hence, the general test of guilt is one that requires proof of fault, culpability or blameworthiness in conjugation of thought () and action (). In order for an to be committed there ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mistake Of Fact
A mistake of fact may sometimes mean that, while a person has committed the physical element of an offence, because they were labouring under a mistake of fact, they never formed the mental element. This is unlike a mistake of law, which is not usually a defense; law enforcement may or may not take for granted that individuals know what the law is. Discussion Most criminal law systems in developed states exclude mistake of law as a defense, because allowing defendants to invoke their own ignorance of the law would breach the public policy represented by the Latin maxim: '' ignorantia legis neminem excusat''. But someone operating under a mistake of fact will not generally be liable, because, although the defendant has committed the ''actus reus'' of the offense, the defendant may honestly believe in a set of facts that would prevent him or her from forming the requisite ''mens rea'' required to constitute the crime. For example: A defendant goes into a supermarket and places ei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Absolute Liability
Absolute liability is a standard of legal liability found in tort and criminal law of various legal jurisdictions. To be convicted of an ordinary crime, in certain jurisdictions, a person must not only have committed a criminal action but also have had a deliberate intention or guilty mind (''mens rea''). In a crime of strict or absolute liability, a person could be guilty even if there was no intention to commit a crime. The difference between strict and absolute liability is whether the defence of a “mistake of fact” is available: in a crime of absolute liability, a mistake of fact is not a defence. Strict or absolute liability can also arise from inherently dangerous activities or defective products that are likely to result in a harm to another, regardless of protection taken, such as owning a pet rattle snake; negligence is not required to be proven. Australia The Australian Criminal Code Act 1995 defines absolute liability in Division 6, subsection 2: Absolute liabi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Code
A criminal code (or penal code) is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might be imposed for these offences, and some general provisions (such as definitions and prohibitions on retroactive prosecution). Criminal codes are relatively common in civil law jurisdictions, which tend to build legal systems around codes and principles which are relatively abstract and apply them on a case-by-case basis. Conversely they are not as common in common law jurisdictions. The proposed introduction of a criminal code in England and Wales was a significant project of the Law Commission from 1968 to 2008. Due to the strong tradition of legal precedent in the jurisdiction and consequently the large number of binding legal judgements and ambiguous 'common law offences', as well as the often inconsistent nature of English law, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legislation
Legislation is the process or result of enrolled bill, enrolling, enactment of a bill, enacting, or promulgation, promulgating laws by a legislature, parliament, or analogous Government, governing body. Before an item of legislation becomes law it may be known as a bill (proposed law), bill, and may be broadly referred to as "legislation" while it remains under consideration to distinguish it from other business. Legislation can have many purposes: to regulate, to authorize, to outlaw, to provide (funds), to sanction, to grant, to declare, or to restrict. It may be contrasted with a non-legislative act by an Executive (government), executive or administrative body under the authority of a legislative act. Overview Legislation is usually proposed by a member of the legislature (e.g. a member of Congress or Parliament), or by the executive, whereupon it is debated by members of the legislature and is often amended before passage (legislature), passage. Most large legislatures enact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infraction
A summary offence or petty offence is a violation in some common law jurisdictions that can be proceeded against summarily, without the right to a jury trial and/or indictment (required for an indictable offence). Canada In Canada, summary offences are referred to as summary conviction offences. As in other jurisdictions, summary conviction offences are considered less serious than indictable offences because they are punishable by shorter prison sentences and smaller fines. These offences appear both in the federal laws of Canada and in the legislation of Canada's provinces and territories. For summary conviction offences that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government (which includes all criminal law), section 787 of the Criminal Code specifies that, unless another punishment is provided for by law, the maximum penalty for a summary conviction offence is a sentence of 2 years less a day of imprisonment, a fine of $5,000 or both. As a matter of practical effect, som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malum Prohibitum
''Malum prohibitum'' (plural ''mala prohibita'', literal translation: "wrong s or becauseprohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute, as opposed to conduct that is evil in and of itself, or ''malum in se''. Conduct that is so clearly violative of society's standards for allowable conduct that it is illegal under English common law is usually regarded as ''malum in se''. An offense that is ''malum prohibitum'' may not appear on the face to directly violate moral standards. The distinction between these two cases is discussed in ''State of Washington v. Thaddius X. Anderson'': Examples of offenses that are generally regarded as ''mala prohibita'' include disorderly conduct, gambling, possession of a controlled substance, prostitution, public intoxication, resisting arrest, speeding, and vagrancy. See also * Public-order crime * Victimless crime A victimless crime is an illegal act that typically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
