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Mens rea and actus reus: Difference between revisions
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Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) (Created page with "{{g}}A guity mind, from the axiomatic Latin expression which founds the English criminal law, ''actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea''<ref>You see this often articulated as...") |
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{{ | {{a|latin|}}“[[Mens rea]]” is a “guilty mind”, from the axiomatic Latin expression which founds the English criminal law, ''actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea'':<ref>You see this often articulated as “actus ''reus'' non facit reum nisi mens sit rea,” but with my rudimentary grasp of Latin, that is a reus too far.</ref> “An ''act'' is not guilty unless the ''mind'' is guilty”. Its phyiscal counterpart is “[[actus reus]],” the “guilty act”, though of course the pointy of this maxim is that, by itself, the act ''isn’t'' guilty. It is only a dirty mind that makes it so. | ||
What counts as a sufficiently guilty mind will depend on the offence, or wrong, in question. For criminal acts, it will generally be [[intention]] or [[recklessness]]; for [[strict liability]] offences and torts, more likely no more than [[gross negligence]] or [[negligence]]. Only the [[blameless inadvertence|blamelessly inadvertent]] get away unscathed, and even they can fall prey to offences of [[absolute liability]]. | |||
It is sometimes forgotten by commercial lawyers that the law of contract is very, very different. Contract cares not about your fragile mental state. Your act — performance — is all there is. There is a bit of an essay about this at, of all places, our essay about Section {{isdaprov|3(d)}} Representations under the {{isdama}}. | |||
{{sa}} | {{sa}} | ||
*[[degrees of liability]] | *[[degrees of liability]] | ||
{{ref}} | {{ref}} | ||