A crime in English Law and Canadian Law - Essay Example

?Running Head: A crime in english and canadian law A Crime in English and Canadian Law Teacher’s ID English and Canadian laws have some major similarities in general since Canadian law has drawn its genesis from the English version of criminal law like many other countries of the world. Criminal law has some major components that are required to exist in order to prove a commission of a crime. These two elements are actus reus and mens rea. It is important to note that concurrence of these two elements is mandatory to prove any offence. While existence of these two elements is common in English and Canadian laws, there are some major differences when it comes to their interpretation in these two laws. In order to analyze definition of crime in English and Canadian laws, developing understanding of actus reus and mens rea is imperative. There are varied definitions of crime present in different national and international laws. However, the most recurrent definition is given by Blackburn (1993, p. 5) which defines crime to be “acts attracting legal punishment that are injurious in some way to the community at large or one or more people within it”. Another Canadian version of this definition is provided by Tappan (1960) which defines crime as “an intentional act or omission in violation of criminal law (statutory or case law), committed without defense or justification, and sanctioned by the state as a felony or misdemeanor (Haggan, 2011).” It is important to note that a crime will only be considered as committed if there is actus reus (guilty act carried out voluntarily) and mens rea (guilty mind leading to intention of committing the act) (Boyd, 2010). Therefore, mens rea and actus reus are the major elements of criminal law. Hence, a crime is a breach of rules defined by the state or any other governing authority. Most of the crimes are considered as offences against the state and community. The definition of crime under Canadian law is relatively similar to the one prevailing in English law. Therefore, the crime occurs when an individual breaches criminal law prevailing in the state voluntarily and with guilty mind (actus reus and mens rea respectively). Both laws also presume innocence of the accused until unless proven guilty. However, Canadian law levies burden of proof on the crown counsel in Canada (Boyd, 2010). There is also slight variation in the elements of these two laws. In English criminal law, actus Reus and mens rea form the main elements of law. Omission of intent is a third element which is referred to as strict liability. However, in many cases, the criminal intentions are not required to be shown. In such cases, strict liability is applied. On the other hand, elements of Canadian criminal law includes actus reus, mens rea, special circumstances leading to incomplete offences, aiding and assisting in crime (Boyd, 2010). As far as criminal liability is concerned, it forms part of product liability law instead of criminal law. In order to understand differences between these two major elements of criminal law, it is important to analyze how English and Canadian laws consider actus reus and mens rea individually. The origin for actus reus and mens rea is English law and it is adapted in Canadian version of criminal law and other parts of the world as well. Actus Reus itself is a Latin for guilty act and is considered as mandatory criterion for criminal offence. It is important to note that actus reus defines all the elements of an offence other than mens rea which defines one’s state of mind. Actus Reus’ severity is defined by circumstances in which the offence has taken place or its consequences. Hence, the act has to be voluntary and willfully committed in order to fulfill the condition of Actus Reus. There are four types of crimes on the basis of actus Reus which are actions crimes i.e. conduct, state of affairs crimes, result crimes and omission. Actions crimes take place when the consequences of the acts are immaterial. State of affairs crimes constitute of circumstances and consequences however the acts are in the ‘being’ state instead of ‘doing’ state. Thirdly, result crimes take place when an act produces an obvious and particular result (Elliott & Quinn, 2010). Omission cannot always result in actus reus except in the cases of statutory duty, contractual duty and duty imposed by law. Exceptions to actus reus are automatism, reflex actions and physical force. In Canadian law, actus reus is “the prohibited act in a criminal or regulatory offence (Roach, 2008)”. Canadian law requires that the prohibited act is performed willfully and consciously. Canadian law requires evil act to coincide with evil intent for conviction (Boyd, 2010). An important part of Canadian law is application of the concepts of subjective and objective intention in assessment of actus reus. According to Boyd (2010), “the distinction is between what a reasonable person would be expected to intend and what the accused actually did intend (p. 301).” Hence, the presence of common knowledge plays an important role for Crown counselor to prove accused as guilty. A comparative analysis of Canadian and English law helps in understanding that Canadian law does not consider morality and social responsibility as criteria for assessment of actus reus. There are few major similarities in these two laws and actus reus is often considered synonymous in both of them. However, Canadian law only considers omission or commission as a reflection of guilty mind. On the other hand, English law has four versions of crimes as classification of actus reus. Secondly, both laws have similar exception clauses. Thirdly, meanings of omission are more extensive in Canadian law. Lastly, the notion of subjective and objective assessment of actus reus is more exhaustive and aggressive in Canadian law. Mens rea is another important element of Criminal law in most of the countries and it is drawn from English version of this law. Mens Rea is a Latin translation for ‘guilty mind’. Mens rea defines intent to commit an offense that is deemed illegal or a crime by the prevalent authority. Mens rea itself can be classified into intention, recklessness and negligence according to English version however this classification excludes negligence in Canadian law (Boyd, 2010). An individual either tends to have direct/ purpose intent when the results of the actions are desired. On the other hand, an oblique intent leads to actions when consequences are foreseeable but not desired. Second classification of this element is recklessness. It is an act of taking a risk which is unjustified. However, under the circumstances caused by recklessness, the prosecutors examine it by applying tests of subjective and objective recklessness. Negligence is an act of not following the reasonable standards meant for actions. For this purpose, the tests of objective negligence are performed to examine the reasonableness of one’s actions (Elliott & Quinn, 2012). English law further recognizes transferred malice where coincidence of mens rea and actus reus result in unintended breach of law. An important element of English criminal law is strict liability. The same notion is known as transferred intent in Canadian law. Absolute liability may not require evidence for intent or recklessness however strict liability requires to show that the incident is a result of negligence e.g. actions in the state of substance abuse. English law tends to show more preference for objective tests while examining mens era (Elliott & Quinn, 2012). Comparing mens rea in Canadian and English law illustrates that meaning and classification of mens rea varies in English and Canadian law. Both laws have contradiction on inclusion of negligence in the classification. Another important difference is application of strict liability. Strict liability forms a major part of tort law in Canadian version whereas strict liability is considered important is assessment of mens rea while assessing a criminal offense in English law. Lastly, use of objective assessment in analyzing mens rea also varies in these two versions of criminal law. Analyzing definition of crime in Canadian and English law provides a cornerstone for development of argument surrounding mens rea and actus reus in these two laws. Where actus reus helps in identifying existence of criminal act, mens rea provides definition of guilty intent. Their coexistence acts as criteria for a legal decision regarding commission of criminal offense. These two elements also help in assessing nature of offense and provide the rationale for verdict as well. Although there are several similarities in these two versions of criminal laws however some basic differences cannot be ignored. Classification of actus reus forms a major contradiction in English and Canadian versions of criminal law. In addition to that, application of moral and social responsibility is relatively less dominant in Canadian version while examining actus reus in cases of omission. Furthermore omission has an extensive meaning in English law and has several exceptions as well. On the other hand, mens rea also bears several differences when it comes to classification. Where Canadian version has ambiguity in inclusion of negligence; English law considers it a mandatory classification of mens rea. Furthermore, application of strict liability is more dominant in English law and is considered extensively while examining existence of criminal or guilty intent. References Boyd, N. (2010). Canadian Law. Cengage Learning. Blackburn, R. (1993). The Psychology of Criminal Conduct. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons. Elliott, C. & Quinn, F. (2012). Criminal Law, 9th ed. Pearson Education. Hagan, F.H. (2011). Introduction to Criminology: Theories, Methods and Criminal Behavior. CA: SAGE Publications. Roach, K. (2008). Criminal Law, 4th ed. Irwin Law. Tappan, P. (1960). Crime, Justice and Corrections. New York: McGraw-Hill. Read More