Ignorance of the law is no excuse Thursday, 02 June 2011 01:48

Every crime has a material and moral element. The material element is the behaviour of the offender, whether it is an action or refrainment. If this action or refrainment is a crime in the eyes of the law, that person shall not be responsible for the crime that was not the result of his criminal activity. The moral element is the intent and it is divided into real intent and intent error. The intent error is considered if the crime occurred because of offender’s error, whether this error is due to negligence or lack of attention or lack of caution or recklessness or failure to observe the laws and regulations. The perpetrator is responsible for the crime, whether he committed it intentionally or by mistake, unless the law requires the existence of intent explicitly. Sometimes surpassing the criminal intention materializes when criminal’s intention heads to create a less serious result and another serious result materializes which he didn’t intend to. The law provides that the ignorance of the law is not an excuse. The ignorance of the crime specifying text or misinterpretation shall not negate the criminal intention. The crime cannot be justified unless the law provides otherwise. If the perpetrator commits the crime under the influence of a mistake in the facts, the responsibility of the offender shall be determined on the basis of the facts that were believed to be found, provided that his belief shall be based on reasonable grounds. If the mistake that made the criminal believe his being non responsible is resulting from his neglect or his non caution, the offender shall be responsible for non-intentional crime according to the texts of the Penal Code No 11 / 2004.