In
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
, (
Latin for "
ignorance of the law excuses not"),
['' Black's Law Dictionary'', 5th Edition, pg. 672] or ("ignorance of law excuses no one"),
['' Black's Law Dictionary'', 5th Edition, pg. 673] is a
legal principle holding that a person who is unaware of a law may not escape
liability for violating that law merely by being unaware of its content.
European-law countries with a tradition of
Roman law may also use an expression from
Aristotle translated into Latin: ("nobody is thought to be ignorant of the law") or ("not knowing the law is harmful").
Explanation
The rationale of the doctrine is that if ignorance were an excuse, a person charged with
criminal offense
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
s or a subject of a civil
lawsuit would merely claim that one was unaware of the law in question to avoid liability, even if that person really does know what the law in question is. Thus, the law
imputes knowledge of all laws to all persons within the
jurisdiction no matter how transiently. Even though it would be impossible, even for someone with substantial legal training, to be aware of every law in operation in every aspect of a
state's activities, this is the price paid to ensure that
willful blindness cannot become the basis of
exculpation
In jurisprudence, an excuse is a defense to criminal charges that is distinct from an exculpation. Justification and excuse are different defenses in a criminal case (See Justification and excuse).Criminal Law Cases and Materials, 7th ed. 20 ...
. Thus, it is well settled that persons engaged in any undertakings outside what is common for a normal person will make themselves aware of the laws necessary to engage in that undertaking. If they do not, they cannot complain if they incur liability.
The doctrine assumes that the law in question has been properly promulgated—published and distributed, for example, by being printed in a
government gazette, made available over the
Internet, or printed in volumes available for sale to the public at affordable prices. In the ancient phrase of
Gratian, ''Leges instituuntur cum promulgantur'' ("
Laws
Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. ...
are instituted when they are promulgated"). In order that a law obtain the binding force which is proper to a law, it must be applied to the men who have to be ruled by it. Such application is made by their being given notice by promulgation. A law can bind only when it is reasonably possible for those to whom it applies to acquire knowledge of it in order to observe it, even if actual knowledge of the law is absent for a particular individual. A secret law is no law at all.
In
criminal law, although ignorance may not clear a defendant of
guilt
Guilt may refer to:
*Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard
*Culpability, a legal term
*Guilt (law), a legal term
Music
* ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims
* "Guilt" (The Long Bl ...
, it can be a consideration in
sentencing, particularly where the law is unclear or the defendant sought advice from law enforcement or regulatory officials. For example, in one
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source o ...
case, a person was charged with being in possession of
gambling devices after they had been advised by
customs
Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
officials that it was legal to import such devices into Canada. Although the defendant was convicted, the sentence was an
absolute discharge Absolute may refer to:
Companies
* Absolute Entertainment, a video game publisher
* Absolute Radio, (formerly Virgin Radio), independent national radio station in the UK
* Absolute Software Corporation, specializes in security and data risk manage ...
.
In addition, there were, particularly in the days before
satellite communication and
cellular phones
A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
, persons who could genuinely be ignorant of the law due to distance or isolation. For example, in a case in
British Columbia, four hunters were
acquitted
In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as criminal law is concerned. The finality of an acquittal is dependent on the jurisdiction. In some countries, such as the ...
of game offenses where the law was changed during the period they were in the wilderness hunting. Another case, in early
English law, involved a seaman on a
clipper before the
invention of radio
The invention of radio communication was preceded by many decades of establishing theoretical underpinnings, discovery and experimental investigation of radio waves, and engineering and technical developments related to their transmission and d ...
who had shot another. Although he was found guilty, he was pardoned, as the law had been changed while he was at sea.
Although ignorance of the law, like other
mistakes of law, is not a defence, a
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 ...
may well be, depending on the circumstances: that is, the false but sincerely held belief in a factual state of affairs which, had it been the case, would have made the conduct innocent in law.
In literature
The doctrine, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse," first shows up in the Bible in Leviticus 5:17: "If a person sins and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD's commands, even though he does not know it, he is guilty and will be held responsible." An alternate explanation of the origin of the maxim, though not particularly relevant to the modern context, can be found in the philosophy of the Greeks and Romans. Such were cultures heavily influenced by customary legal systems. Within such a system, law is learned as a person participates in the culture and customs of the community. Thus it is unreasonable to believe a person could have avoided learning them. These rules and customs were also interwoven with ethical and religious dialogue so that laws expressed what is right and that which is not. We find that
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...
wrote the following in ''
De re publica'' (On the Republic):
There is a true law, right reason, agreeable to nature, known to all men, constant and eternal, which calls to duty by its precepts, deters from evil by its prohibition. This law cannot be departed from without guilt. Nor is there one law at Rome and another at Athens, one thing now and another afterward; but the same law, unchanging and eternal, binds all races of man and all times.
Minos (attributed to
Plato) states the following conversation between
Socrates and his companion:
;Socrates
:Come then, do you consider just things to be unjust and unjust things just, or just things to be just and unjust things unjust?
;Companion
:I consider just things to be just, and unjust things unjust.
;Socrates
:And are they so considered among all men elsewhere as they are here?
;Companion
:Yes.
.
.
.
;Socrates
:Are things that weigh more considered heavier here, and things that weigh less lighter, or the contrary?
;Companion
:No, those that weigh more are considered heavier, and those that weigh less lighter.
;Socrates
:And is it so in Carthage also, and in Lycaea?
;Companion
:Yes.
;Socrates
:Noble things, it would seem, are everywhere considered noble, and base things base; not base things noble or noble things base.
;Companion
:That is so.
Translation
Presumed knowledge of the law is the principle in
jurisprudence that one is bound by a law even if one does not know of it. It has also been defined as the "prohibition of ignorance of the law".
The concept comes from
Roman law, and is expressed in the
brocard ''ignorantia legis non excusat''.
The essential public character of a law requires that the law, once properly promulgated, must apply to anyone in the
jurisdiction where the law applies. Thus, no one can justify his conduct on the grounds that he was not aware of the law.
Generally, a convention exists by which the laws are issued and rendered accessible by methods, authors and means that are simple and well known: the law is readable in certain places (some systems prescribe that a collection of the laws is copied in every local city council), is made by certain authorities (usually sovereign, government, parliament, and derivative bodies), and enters into effect in certain ways (many systems for instance prescribe a certain number of days - often 15 - after issue). This is commonly intended as a
constitutional
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princi ...
regulation, and in fact many
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princi ...
s or
statutes exactly describe the correct procedures.
However, some recent interpretations weaken this concept. Particularly in
civil law, regard can be had to the difficulty of being informed of the existence of a law considering the lifestyle of the average citizen. On the penal side, the quality of the knowledge of the law can affect the evaluation of the
animus nocendi
In jurisprudence, () is the subjective state of mind of the perpetrator of a crime, with reference to the exact knowledge of illegal content of his behaviour, and of its possible consequences.
In most modern legal systems, the is required a ...
or the
mens rea, in that certain subjective conditions can weaken personal responsibility.
The theme was widely discussed, also for political reasons, at the time of
the Enlightenment and in the 18th century, given the heavy proportion of illiterate citizens in European countries (who would have some difficulties being aware of all the laws in a country). It was then argued that both the presumed knowledge and the heavily increasing corpus of national legislation were working in favour of lawyers rather than citizens.
In recent times, some authors have considered this concept as an extension of (or at least as analogous to) the other ancient concept (typical of
criminal law) that no one can be punished under a law that was issued after the action was committed (non-retroactivity of the law. See
ex post facto). This interpretation is however disputed, given that the matter would hierarchically more properly refer to a constitutional doctrine rather than to a civil or penal one.
Some modern criminal statutes contain language such as stipulating that the act must be done "knowingly and wittingly" or "with unlawful intent," or some similar language. However, this does not refer to ignorance of laws, but having
criminal intent.
Statutory law
This principle is also stated in
statutes:
*Brazil:
**Article 3rd of the Law of Introduction to Brazilian Law Norms.
**Article 21 of the Brazilian Penal Code.
*Canada:
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 ...
, section 19
*Philippines:
Republic Act No. 386 "Civil Code of the Philippines", Article 3
Exceptions
In some jurisdictions, there are exceptions to the general rule that ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. For example, under U.S. Federal criminal tax law, the element of ''willfulness'' required by the provisions of the
Internal Revenue Code has been ruled by the courts to correspond to a "voluntary, intentional violation of a known legal duty" under which an "actual good faith belief based on a misunderstanding caused by the complexity of the tax law" is a valid legal defense. See ''
Cheek v. United States
''Cheek v. United States'', 498 U.S. 192 (1991), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court reversed the conviction of John L. Cheek, a tax protester, for willful failure to file tax returns and tax evasion. The Court held that an ...
''.
In ''
Lambert v. California'' (1957), the
Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a person who is unaware of a ''
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 e ...
'' law cannot be convicted of violating it if there was no probability he could have known the law existed. It was subsequently ruled in ''
United States v. Freed'' (1971) that this exception does not apply when a reasonable person would expect their actions to be regulated, such as when possessing narcotics or dangerous weapons.
In ''
Heien v. North Carolina
''Heien v. North Carolina'', 574 U.S. 54 (2014), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, ruling that a police officer's reasonable mistake of law can provide the individualized suspicion required by the Fourth Amendment to the United S ...
'' (2014), the Supreme Court held that even if a police officer incorrectly believes that a person has violated the law due to a mistaken understanding of the law, the officer's "
reasonable suspicion" that a law was being broken does not violate the
Fourth Amendment.
See also
*
Edict of government
Edict of government is a technical term associated with the United States Copyright Office's guidelines and practices that comprehensively includes laws (in a wide sense of that term), which advises that such submissions will neither be accepted no ...
*
Mistake of law
Mistake of law is a legal principle referring to one or more errors that were made by a person in understanding how the applicable law applied to their past activity that is under analysis by a court. In jurisdictions that use the term, it is dif ...
*
Qualified immunity
*
Secret law
*
Imputation (law)
*
Zero tolerance
References
Bibliography
* "''Ignorantia Legis Neminem Excusat'', ''Manitoba Law Journal'', Vol. 2, Issue 10 (October 1885), pp. 145–157
* Nuhiu, Agim; Ademi, Naser; Emruli, Safet, "''Ignorantia Legis Neminem Excusat'' in the Area of Equality and Non-Discrimination—The Case of Macedonia", ''Journal of Law, Policy and Globalization'', Vol. 43, pp. 62–66
* Van Warmelo, P., "''Ignorantia Iuris'', ''Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis''/''Legal History Review'', Vol. 22, Issue 1 (1954), pp. 1–32
* Volcker, Sven B., "''Ignorantia Legis non Excusat'' and the Demise of National Procedural Autonomy in the Application of the EU Competition Rules: Schenker", ''Common Market Law Review'', Vol. 51, Issue 5 (October 2014), pp. 1497–1520
{{English criminal law navbox
Brocards (law)
Common law rules
Criminal law
Ignorance
Legal rules with Latin names
Legal doctrines and principles
Promulgation