essay about ignorance of the law excuses no one

Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse: What Does “Ignorantia Juris non Excusat” Mean in Legal Terms?

By legalfix, posted: december 3, 2023.

The legal maxim "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is encapsulated in the Latin phrase, " ignorantia juris non excusat ." It signifies a fundamental principle in many legal systems whereby individuals are presumed to know and understand the laws of the jurisdiction in which they live or act, and they cannot escape liability for violating the law merely by claiming they were unaware of its content.

Rationale and Implications:

Public Order and Consistency: If every person could evade legal consequences by claiming ignorance, it would undermine the rule of law and create an untenable legal system. Allowing ignorance as a defense would make law enforcement erratic and unpredictable.

Encourages the Public to Learn the Law: The maxim underscores the idea that people have a responsibility to be aware of the laws that regulate society and their conduct. It incentivizes individuals to familiarize themselves with relevant laws before undertaking actions.

Practical Necessity: Given the vast number of laws, even legal professionals must frequently look up and study specific legal provisions. It would be impractical to ascertain genuinely whether an individual knew a particular law before violating it.

Protects Against Deliberate Ignorance: Without this maxim, individuals might be motivated not to educate themselves about the law, hoping that ignorance would shield them from liability.

Nuances and Caveats to Consider:

Mistake of Fact vs. Mistake of Law: While ignorance of the law is generally not an excuse, a genuine mistake of fact (an error about a factual matter, such as believing one's actions were legally permissible based on incorrect factual information) can sometimes be a defense. Scienter, also known as mens rea, is a fundamental concept in criminal law, representing the mental state or intent of a person who commits a crime. It's the difference between someone knowingly committing an act versus doing so accidentally or without awareness. This principle is crucial because it distinguishes between those who deliberately break the law and those who do so unwittingly. Unlike mere ignorance of the law, which is not typically a defense in criminal cases, scienter focuses on the perpetrator's actual knowledge and intent at the time of the crime. Ignorance of the law refers to a lack of knowledge about the legal wrongfulness of an act, but it doesn't negate the intentional aspect required for certain crimes. For instance, a person can be aware that their actions are illegal (thus having scienter) but still claim ignorance of the specific law they are breaking. In essence, while ignorance of the law excuses no one, scienter is necessary to establish the level of culpability and is a key element in determining the severity of punishment in criminal proceedings.

Complexity of Modern Law: In today's complex legal environment, the maxim can seem overly harsh. No one can know every law, given the intricate web of statutes, regulations, and ordinances in modern societies.

Exceptions in Some Jurisdictions: While the maxim is a foundational principle in many jurisdictions, there are exceptions. Some legal systems or specific laws might take into account a person's knowledge or understanding of the law when assessing culpability.

In summary, " ignorantia juris non excusat " emphasizes the societal expectation that individuals adhere to the law whether they know it or not. It stresses the importance of the rule of law in maintaining order and fairness in society. 

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Ignorance of the Law Is Not an Excuse

Apr 23, 2018 | The Informed Citizen

If you are unaware you are breaking a law, should you be held accountable? In general, the law says yes.

The legal principle of ignorantia juris non excusat (ignorance of the law excuses not) or ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of law excuses no one) is derived from Roman law. Essentially, it means that if someone breaks the law, he or she is still liable even if they had no knowledge of the law being broken.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.”

Today, there are literally tens of thousands of laws on the books, both federally and on a state level. Is it reasonable to assume that everyone knows every law?

According to Tiffany N. Basciano, associate director of the International Law and Organizations Program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, it is reasonable to assume that people are familiar with generally recognized wrongs, such as violence and dishonesty, as well as community standards based on their lived experience.

“Is it reasonable to expect people to know every law on the books? No. But generally knowledge of the law is not required,” Basciano says.

The government has a duty to appropriately disseminate new laws to the public and making them publicly accessible.

“Knowledge of all properly disseminated laws can be attributed to everyone,” she says. “If knowledge of the law were required, criminal and civil defendants alike would routinely plead ignorance of the law as a defense, which would undermine the concept and administration of justice.”

Basciano also points out that in criminal law, a person cannot be charged for any conduct that was not prohibited at the time of the act. In other words, a law cannot be passed retroactively criminalizing an act.

“This idea reflects the legal principle of nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without law),” Basciano says. “There is also a doctrine called the rule of lenity , which provides that courts should interpret ambiguous criminal laws in favor of the defendant.”

U.S. Supreme Court Rulings

Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has addressed the issue of ignorance of the law. The 1833 case of Barlow v. United States involved the seizure of 85 barrels of sugar, which Joseph Barlow was attempting to export under the false denomination of refined sugar. Barlow contended that the sugar was not entered by false denomination and he did not intend to defraud the revenue. The Court did not believe that Barlow had no knowledge that the sugar he was attempting to export was unrefined and said the case presented a broader question of “whether a mistake of law will excuse a forfeiture in cases of this description. We think it will not. The whole course of jurisprudence , criminal as well as civil, of the common law points to a different conclusion. It is a common maxim familiar to all minds that ignorance of the law will not excuse any person, either civilly or criminally, and it results from the extreme difficulty of ascertaining what is the bona fide interpretation of the party, and the extreme danger of allowing such excuses to be set up for illegal acts, to the detriment of the public.”

More recently, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Jerman v. Carlisle, McNellie, Rini, Kramer & Ulrich LPA. That case involved the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The plaintiff in the case, Karen Jerman sued a law firm that instituted foreclosure proceedings against her property in error. The law firm acknowledged that it violated the FDCPA, but that its error was a bona fide error. An Ohio district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sided with the law firm. The Appeals Court held that the FDCPA error defense applies to mistakes of law.

The question for the U.S. Supreme Court was to decide whether a debt collector’s mistake in law qualifies as a bona fide error defense. The Court ruled it did not and that such an error can never be “not intentional.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor used the same language—“ignorance of the law will not excuse any person, either civilly or criminally” as in the Barlow case.

Some Exceptions

The U.S. Supreme Court has made some exceptions to the “ignorance is not an excuse” defense. In the 1957 case of Lambert v. California , the Court ruled that the defendant’s (Lambert) failure to register as a felon after moving to Los Angeles was a “wholly passive act.” Lambert, who had been previously convicted of forgery, was unaware of an ordinance requiring that she register as a felon if in the city of Los Angeles for more than five days. Because she was not allowed to use ignorance of the law as a defense, she was convicted, fined $250 and sentenced to three years probation. Lambert could have faced as much as six months in jail for every day in the city after exceeding the five-day limit. The Court reversed the conviction. Justice William Douglas wrote in the Court’s majority opinion, “Where a person did not know of the duty to register and where there was no proof of the probability of such knowledge, he may not be convicted consistent with due process .”

Another exception the U.S. Supreme Court has carved out with regard to ignorance of the law deals with the tax code. In the 1991 case of Cheek v. United States , the Court said: “The general rule that ignorance of the law or a mistake of law is no defense to criminal prosecution is deeply rooted in the American legal system…The proliferation of statutes and regulations has sometimes made it difficult for the average citizen to know and comprehend the extent of the duties and obligations imposed by the tax laws. Congress has accordingly softened the impact of the common law presumption by making specific intent to violate the law an element of certain federal criminal tax offenses. Thus, the Court almost 60 years ago interpreted the statutory term ‘willfully’ as used in the federal criminal tax statutes as carving out an exception to the traditional rule. This special treatment of criminal tax offenses is largely due to the complexity of the tax laws. ”

While “ignorance of the law” is not an excuse, Basciano says in some cases, it may be a mitigating circumstance when considering sentencing in a criminal case, or reduced damages in a civil case.

“Legislators could write both criminal and civil law statutes in a way that requires a ‘willful’ violation of the law, making knowledge of the law relevant to liability,” she says.

Discussion Questions 1. What is the difference between a law and a rule? What happens if you claim ignorance of a rule?  What are some rules that exist that you believe should be law? 2. Think of a time when you broke a rule that you were not aware of. How did you feel? How was the situation resolved? 3. The article speaks of some exceptions where people claimed ignorance and were not convicted of the crime.  Think of some other examples where a person might commit a crime unknowingly and should not be punished. Explain your reasoning.

Glossary Words: ambiguous : unclear. bona fide : sincerely; without intention to deceive. due process : legal safeguards that a citizen may claim if a state or court makes a decision that could affect any right of that citizen. jurisprudence : the philosophy of law or a legal system. lenity : kindness. mitigating circumstances : factors that may lessen accountability, but do not excuse a defendant from guilt. proliferation : rapid increase in number. reverse : to void or change a decision by a lower court. retroactively : with effect from a date in the past. statute : a written law passed by a legislative body.

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Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse

There’s an important legal principle that says “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” That’s right: you can’t defend your actions by arguing you didn’t know they were illegal, even if you honestly did not realize you were breaking the law.

Knowing the Law

Under our legal system, Canadians are expected to know what the law says. But this doesn’t mean we all have to be legal experts. It’s not realistic for everyone to memorize all the laws! Not even lawyers know all this information.

The rule “ignorance of the law is no excuse” really means that people can’t defend their actions by claiming they didn’t know the law.

It would be too easy for people to break a contract, ignore a neighbour’s right to privacy or sell drugs if they could get away with it by arguing they didn’t know it was against the law.

However, even when people have good intentions, they sometimes break the law because they don’t realize they are doing something illegal. This can happen because our legal system is complicated. When people have good intentions, judges can sometimes be understanding. Judges are less understanding when the actions involve certain kinds of crimes.

Be Well-Informed

So, you can see how important it is to make sure to respect the law. To get information about the law, there are several things you can do:

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Ignorance of the law.

In law, ignorantia juris non excusat (Latin for "ignorance of the law excuses not"), or ignorantia legis neminem excusat ("ignorance of law excuses no one"), 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: nemo censetur ignorare legem ("nobody is thought to be ignorant of the law") or ignorantia iuris nocet ("not knowing the law is harmful").

Source: Wikipedia

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The initial content for the Encyclopedia was seeded from UIA’s Yearbook of International Organizations . UIA’s decades of collected data on the enormous variety of association life provided a broad initial perspective on the myriad problems of humanity. Recognizing that international associations are generally confronting world problems and developing action strategies based on particular values , the initial content was based on the descriptions, aims, titles and profiles of international associations.

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Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse, But It Is Reality

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Everyone in America knows that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” It is drummed into students from their first civics class in elementary school, so much so that it is a part of our cultural heritage. The phrase captures an important concept about culpability. It stems from a time when criminal law was grounded in morality and a shared understanding of wrongfulness and when crimes were self-evident wrongs—what the law calls “wrong in their essence,” or “ malum in se .” Perhaps the best example of how deeply this idea is ingrained in society is the classic Steve Martin comedy sketch in which Martin gazes into the camera plaintively and presents his defense to being accused of a “foul crime”: “two simple words, I forgot”—as in “I forgot armed robbery is illegal.” The joke, of course, is that nobody could forget that armed robbery (or rape or murder) is a crime. [1] That is because inherent wrongs put people on notice, in effect, that the criminal law might apply.

But the rule that ignorance is no excuse does not work as well for crimes that are not inherently wrong. Today, there are thousands of crimes that are crimes only because they are prohibited by statute. For these types of crimes—known as “wrongs by prohibition,” or malum prohibitum [2] —the principle that ignorance of the law is no excuse works only when a person knows what the statute requires or, at a minimum, could have discovered what the statute requires with a reasonable amount of effort.

Therein lies the problem. The criminal laws are not always easy to track down and not always easy to understand. In fact, many laws are nearly impossible to understand in all of their complexity, and the whole corpus of federal law is in fact impossible to know. There are so many crimes in the federal law books that no conscientious citizen (or even a conscientious legislator, law enforcement officer, lawyer, or judge) could possibly know what they require. This puts Americans at risk of conviction and imprisonment for the violation of laws that are impossible to find and impossible to know, effectively discarding the traditional protection that conviction requires culpability.

The way to fix this problem is to require the federal government to identify all of the criminal provisions of federal law. Those provisions should then be consolidated in a single, easily accessible place—such as Title 18 of the U.S. Code—for ease of location and understanding. Additionally, Congress should require the executive branch to keep the list up-to-date, to ensure that Americans have a fighting chance to keep up with the criminal laws that apply to their conduct.

Ignorance Is No Excuse

The idea that ignorance of the law is no excuse is captured today in the doctrine of “ scienter .” In general, an individual can be guilty of a criminal act only if he acts with a criminal intent, or scienter , to accomplish a criminal purpose. Under most statutes, to win a conviction, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted “knowingly.”

The requirement that a crime involve culpable purposeful intent has a solid historical grounding. As Justice Robert Jackson wrote:

The contention that an injury can amount to a crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion. It is as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil. A relation between some mental element and punishment for a harmful act is almost as instinctive as the child’s familiar exculpatory “But I didn’t mean to,” and has afforded the rational basis for a tardy and unfinished substitution of deterrence and reformation in place of retaliation and vengeance as the motivation for public prosecution. Unqualified acceptance of this doctrine by English common law was indicated by Blackstone’s sweeping statement that to constitute any crime there must first be a “vicious will.” [3]

The very earliest English common law recognized that one who intends to commit a crime (say, injuring a horse) but accidentally commits a different crime (killing the horse) could not be said to have intended the graver offense and therefore could not be held criminally liable for it. [4] But this view of scienter—that the government must show that the defendant intended both to do the act constituting the offense and to accomplish the particular harm prohibited—did not last long. The English and American courts quickly came to the view that in most legal contexts, a criminal actor who intends to engage in an act is liable for whatever harm follows, even if it is different from that which he originally contemplated. In the words of the Model Penal Code, one can act “knowingly” without regard to any specific intent to accomplish a wrongful act or violate a law. It is enough to know that one is undertaking the acts that constitute the offense.

As to malum in se offenses, this doctrine is not in the least problematic. Everyone knows, for example, that shooting another person is wrongful conduct and may bring criminal sanction. Accordingly, the law infers intentionality and culpability, even where there may be no direct evidence that the result (killing another person) was specifically intended.

As to the growing number of malum prohibitum offenses, however, the analysis is radically different. Building on the maxim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” courts now routinely conclude that one can be convicted of a crime for having acted knowingly (that is, purposefully doing an act) without requiring the government to prove that the defendant sought to achieve a particular end or to violate a known legal duty contained in a statute or regulation. For example, violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act require only proof of deliberate business conduct, not proof of intent to abuse a monopoly or to restrain competition.

As a result, for malum prohibitum offenses, scienter requirements provide little protection against conviction in the absence of culpability. Consider, for example, the risk of prosecution in a highly regulated industry. Though the law often requires the government to prove that defendants acted “knowingly”—a seeming protection from the imposition of strict liability—that requirement is but a parchment barrier. At the urging of prosecutors, judges have interpreted many of the statutes that apply to regulated industries so that those who participate in the industry are presumed to be knowledgeable of all the arcane regulatory intricacies that govern their conduct. [5] As a consequence, the only requirement imposed by requiring proof that one has acted “knowingly” is that the government must demonstrate that the defendant has purposefully done the act constituting the offense—in other words, that the defendant was not sleepwalking, acting under some delusion, or the like at the time—and in the context of regulated economic conduct, that showing is trivial. Moreover, proof that the defendant in fact lacked knowledge of the regulatory requirement at issue is uniformly no defense to prosecution.

A typical example is the crime of “knowingly filing a false monitoring report” under the Clean Water Act. [6] The law that defines what is false or misleading is part of a large regulatory scheme that also obligates each individual filing a report to ensure the accuracy of any reports made. As a consequence, the only showing the government must make to the satisfaction of a jury is that the defendant “knowingly filed” the report, irrespective of whether or not he knew it to be false, and because nobody files a report without doing so intentionally, the only showing necessary is that the defendant actually put a letter in the mail. As Justice Potter Stewart noted of defendants accused of such offenses, “[a]s a practical matter…they are under a species of absolute liability for violation of the regulations despite the ‘knowingly’ requirement.” [7]

How Many Federal Crimes Are There?

All of this would be tolerable if it were in fact feasible for law-abiding citizens to know all that the law requires. If, for example, a person could know all of the regulatory requirements of the Clean Water Act and every other statute, then it might be appropriate in some circumstances to charge individuals with the obligation of finding out what the rules are. Thus, it is assumed that a billiards player knows the rules, and they may be held against him whether or not he actually does.

But the premise of that argument is that it is possible to learn all of the rules—that there is some rule book to which one can refer before choosing to act. Sadly, in the criminal law of the United States, there is no such rule book. There is no place that an average American citizen can go to learn all of the criminal laws that may apply to his conduct.

In fact, no one even knows how many federal criminal laws there are, much less what they require. The last time the Congressional Research Service was asked to quantify the number of federal crimes, it told Congress that it could not do so with any certainty. [8] The best recent estimate, by Louisiana State University Professor of Law John Baker, is that there are more than 4,500 criminal offenses contained in federal statutes—and even this estimate is already a half-decade old. [9] All we know for sure is that the number of crimes grows every year.

How could it possibly be so challenging to count the number of federal crimes? In the past, it was not so difficult. Federal crimes were collected in one place—Title 18 of the U.S. Code, titled “Crimes and Criminal Procedure”—and so were easy to find. Today, however, federal crimes are scattered across almost all of the 51 titles of the Code, making it effectively impossible for an average citizen to find them all.

Nor is this problem limited to the federal criminal code. Often, a federal statute criminalizes violations of any requirements contained in agency regulations, and nobody has any idea how many regulations are subject to criminal enforcement. One expert, Professor John Coffee of Columbia Law School, has estimated that there are more than 300,000 separate federal regulations that might be the basis for a criminal prosecution. [10]

It is, if anything, even more difficult to count all the state laws and regulations. There are 50 state jurisdictions, with thousands of laws and tens of thousands of regulations. On top of that are untold thousands of city and county ordinances, many of which impose jail time for violations.

With the proliferation of criminal law, no American citizen can reasonably be expected to know all of the statutes that may apply. It may be that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but for virtually 100 percent of Americans, ignorance is the reality. As a result, according to Harvey Silverglate, a well-respected attorney and author, the average American may commit three felonies a day without even knowing it. [11]

The fact that no one can even locate every criminal offense matters profoundly. Americans would not countenance hidden speed limits on the roads, because there would be no justice in punishing those who exceeded limits that they could not possibly know. Likewise, for criminal offenses that are effectively hidden, punishment is unjust.

The rule that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” was born at a time when there were fewer than a dozen common law felonies, and all those crimes stemmed from and mirrored a commonly shared moral code. Today, the criminal law is a collection of social preferences. Some of them are obvious and reflect common sense notions of wrongfulness, but many reflect only a legislative judgment. It may indeed be a bad idea to ride a manatee for fun, but it is unlikely that anyone would know it was a federal crime—until they read this paper or were prosecuted for it. [12]

An Agenda for Change

The history of change in scienter requirements has been substantial. The criminal law today is far different from the criminal law of a century ago. For regulatory crimes, there is in effect a standard of near-absolute liability based on the no-longer-applicable maxim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” The tragedy is that while ignorance may not be an excuse, it is the reality for American citizens and even for their legislators. Americans are therefore asked to undertake an impossible task—knowing what conduct is allowed and what prohibited—and then punished when they fail. That is simply unjust.

This problem is not intractable and can be addressed in steps, beginning at the federal level. As an initial matter, Congress should demand that the Congressional Research Service, the Government Accountability Office, or the executive branch identify and count all of the crimes in the U.S. Code. [13] Once that is done, all of the crimes in the code should be consolidated or referenced in Title 18, accessible over the Internet without charge, and kept up-to-date.

Only then would American citizens have a fighting chance of understanding the law that regulates their conduct. Only then would it be possible for us again to expect citizens to know the law.

—Paul Rosenzweig is a Visiting Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

[1] Transcript of Steve Martin Monologue, http://snltranscripts.jt.org/77/77imono.phtml (Jan. 21, 1978).

[2] Given how hard it is to know all of the laws, one suggestion is that we should revive the concept of a “mistake of law” defense to criminal charges. See Paul J. Larkin, Jr., “Time for a ‘Mistake of Law’ Defense” (Heritage Foundation, April 2013), http://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2013/4/time-for-a-mistake-of-law-defense .

[3] Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 250–51 (1952).

[4] See Dobbs Case, 2 East P.C. 513 (1770); see also Thacker v. Commonwealth, 114 S.E. 504 (Va. 1922) (defendant shot at a light and struck and killed a victim; not guilty of murder); State v. Peery, 28 N.W.2d. 851 (Minn. 1947) (requiring proof of “intent to be lewd” in indecent exposure prosecution of defendant who was accidentally viewed through ground-floor window by passers-by).

[5] E.g. , United States v. Int’l Minerals & Chemical Corp., 402 U.S. 558, 565 (1971) (“[W]here…dangerous or deleterious materials are involved, the probability of regulation is so great that anyone who is aware that he is in possession of them or dealing with them must be presumed to be aware of the regulation.”).

[6] See 33 U.S.C. § 1319(c)(4) (making it a crime to knowingly make a false statement in any certification required by the regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency). Those regulations, in turn, require the compliance with permit requirements, which typically require the filing of a “discharge monitoring report.” See 40 C.F.R. § 122.41(l)(4). As this brief exegesis demonstrates, even discerning that the law criminalizes the filing of a false report is itself a difficult endeavor.

[7] United States v. Int’l Minerals & Chemical Corp., 402 U.S. 558, 569 (1971) (Stewart, J., dissenting).

[8] See Paul Rosenzweig, “The History of Criminal Law,” at 129 & n.4, in Paul Rosenzweig & Brian Walsh, eds., One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty (Heritage Foundation 2010).

[9] See John S. Baker Jr., “Revisiting the Explosive Growth of Federal Crimes,” Legal Memorandum No. 26 (Heritage Foundation, June 2008), http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/06/revisiting-the-explosive-growth-of-federal-crimes .

[10] See John C. Coffee Jr., Does “Unlawful” Mean “Criminal”? Reflections on the Disappearing Tort/Crime Distinction in American Law , 71 B.U. L. Rev. 193, 216 (1991). Note that this estimate is now more than 20 years old. The number today can only be greater.

[11] See Harvey Silverglate, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (Encounter Books 2011).

[12] Specifically, it is a violation of the Endangered Species Act.

[13] Or, failing that, adopt a “Mistake of Law” defense. See Larkin, supra n. 2.

Former Visiting Fellow, The Heritage Foundation (2009-2017)

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Michigan Law Review

Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR > Volume 96 > Issue 1 (1997)

Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse - but Only for the Virtuous

Dan M. Kahan , University of Chicago Law School Follow

It's axiomatic that "ignorance of the law is no excuse." My aim in this essay is to examine what the "mistake of law doctrine" reveals about the relationship between criminal law and morality in general and about the law's understanding of moral responsibility in particular. The conventional understanding of the mistake of law doctrine rests on two premises, which are encapsulated in the Holmesian epigrams with which I've started this essay. The first is liberal positivism. As a descriptive claim, liberal positivism holds that the content of the law can be identified without reference to morality: one needn't be a good man to perceive what's lawful, Holmes tells us; one need only understand the consequences in store if one should choose to act badly. The nonnative side of liberal positivism urges us to see the independence of law from morality as a good thing. In a pluralistic society, the law should aspire to be comprehensible to persons of diverse moral views. What's more, it should avoid embodying within itself a standard of culpability or blame that depends on an individual's acceptance of any such view as orthodox; in a liberal society, even the bad man can be a good citizen so long as he lives up to society's rules.

Recommended Citation

Dan M. Kahan, Ignorance of Law Is an Excuse - but Only for the Virtuous , 96 M ich. L. R ev. 127 (1997). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol96/iss1/4

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Ignorance of the law excuses no one

2019, Likhaan 13

This suite includes the following poems: Ignorance of the law excuses no one; In absentia; Absolute community; Corpus delicti; Declarations

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Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat

Introduction.

The maxim Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat means ignorance of the law is no excuse. “Ignorance of the law is not an excuse,” says an ancient legal nostrum . This maxim is originated from ancient Roman law. The reason is quite simple, if ignorance can excuse any crime, then ignorance could excuse all crimes. Instead of imposing on the legal system an obligation to prove the defendant’s knowledge of the law, with the defendant’s incentive going in the opposite direction, towards ignorance of the law the legal system assigns no obligation to itself. Whereupon the defendants find that they have a tremendous incentive to know what the law is and to behave accordingly. We can put the meaning of the word “the law” as the regime that orders human activities and relationships through the systematic application of the force of politically organized society or through social pressure in that society. In the legal system, all people are expected to respect and obey the law. With some exceptions, almost all of our conduct is regulated by law. We have various types of law such as civil, criminal, personal, family, fiscal, public and private international law, etc. But it is well known that ignorance of any of these laws cannot constitute an alibi.

Origin of Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat

The earliest use of the maxim in English law can be traced in Blackstone’s Commentaries, where it’s stated that: “often a mistake in point of law which every person of discretion not only may, but is bound and presumed to know, is in criminal cases no sort of defence. Ignorantia juris, quod quisque teneture scire, neminem excusat is as well the maxim of our own law as it was of the Roman”. Thus, it can be seen that the traces the origin of the maxim to Roman law which states that every man is obliged or presupposed to know the law. However, it explains that this is not a defence in criminal cases. From then on, English courts consistently applied this maxim as a rule of law, thus firmly establishing it in English law.

Sine Qua Non

Let us first analyse what is the sine qua non, that should be for this maxim to be valid. The sine qua non would be the same as in a case where one writes a letter to another with the intention that the letter is read and the desired message is understood. Therefore, what is required is that the message is delivered first to the addressee and then that the addressee is able to understand (that is, he must know how to read and understand what is written together with the legislative intent). Therefore, the sine qua non must be “Enactment” and “Knowledge”.

“Knowledge” refers to the ability to know. In a given context, it can only be decided whether a law is knowable or not, if that law:

• Ability to read
• Understanding the context

This “ability” aspect of the law provides the “Logistics” requirement (from the legislator to the audience in question). This means that each and every one of the laws must be very well publicized or promulgated so that they are available for the intended audience. Now, the question arises of understanding the law. The acts, rules, circulars, notifications, etc. which are approved by state governments are written in regional languages ​​and sometimes in English as well. Whereas, the core laws are written in English and Hindi (being the official language). The possibility that people who don’t even understand Hindi cannot be ruled out. Also, even if one is able to read, about “Vagueness in the law”.

This is another aspect that must be taken into consideration while discussing the ability to understand a law. A person who commits a crime must know the law, for which the law must be clear and not vague. In addition, even a lawyer before arguing or a judge before drafting a ruling refers to the Bare Acts and comments to check them. That means, even capable people must take a second look at the laws to be sure. Therefore, the question is, can one be completely updated from a particular law.

The “knowledge” of the law is necessary to determine if one was negligent in knowing the law or could not have the opportunity to know it at all. This also leads to generating a requirement to differentiate between the “mistake of law”, and “Ignorance of Law” is more or less the same. The mistake of the law implies that the doer has knowledge of the law, but that knowledge leads to erroneous conclusions. Whereas, ignorance of the law implies a total lack of knowledge. However, the conclusion in each case is the same, that is, committing an act that is illegal. Different commentators have different points of view when considering whether ignorance and mistake of law are considered one and the same or not.

Furthermore, will ignorance of the law amount to Mens rea? Mens rea means having a guilty mind or a guilty mental state, in which the perpetrator of the act is aware of the illegality and is prohibited by law. Whereas, in the scenario where the doer ignores the law, he lacks the knowledge of the law, as well as the absence of the mental state. Therefore, ignorance of the law cannot lead to Mens rea.

The Rationale Behind the Maxim “Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat”

The principle behind the meaning of “Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat” is based on the presumption that everyone, rather subject to obligations, knows the law. The ignorance of these, forced to know, things, therefore, does not excuse anyone. Scholars express it as a mere legal fiction, which has been created out of necessity for convenience. Therefore, a mistake of law, without taking into account the logic that supports it, even in good faith, does not operate as a factor of acquittal.

If the maxim is relaxed, then any defendant can claim that he had no knowledge of the law on his part. Therefore, it will be almost impossible for the prosecution to prove the same. Hence, out of necessity, it is not advisable to dismantle the tool, which is necessary for the effective administration of justice. Criminal law is based on certain moral principles and, therefore, when someone breaks the law, he or she knows very well that he or she is breaking the rule of law , although he or she is ignorant of some of the provisions of the law. Obviously, this presumption is not based on fundamental realities. In fact, the sheer volume of statutory laws makes it impossible for even skilled attorneys to be so familiar with all the provisions. However, the “legal fiction” is justified, Ignorantia Juris non Excusat, by the public interest. Allowing for error of the law can also lead to fostering ignorance of the law.

Statutory Provisions on Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat

The indian penal code, 1860.

A plain reading of Section 76 and Section 79 of the Indian Penal Code of 1860 , with special attention to the words “who by an error of fact and not by an mistake of law believes in good faith” that appears in the same, shows us that the protection of the sections applies only to the error of fact and not to the mistake of law. This is based on the common law maxim: Ignorantia Facti doth Excusat, Ignorantia Juris non Excusat, ignorance of the facts is an excuse, but ignorance of the law is not.

Illustration

A, a foreigner, kills B in a duel in India. He believes that bereavement is legal in India. “A” is guilty of murder. The act committed by “A” was a specific act that for the first time was classified as a crime by law. “A” proves that at the time the statute was passed, he was at sea and could not have known. This defence is not allowed, as ignorance of the law is no excuse.

In Emperor v. Nanak Chand it was held that “where a statute provides that certain knowledge of the law by the accused is an essential element of the offence, a good faith mistake of law may be a good defence to a charge of an offence”.

Criticism of the Maxim “Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat”

In India, the majority of the population is illiterate and therefore this presumption of knowledge of the law seems not only illogical but also ridiculous and unfair. Legal knowledge is very poor even among educated and literate people. Even professionals, lawyers, judges, and law professors, do not claim or know all the laws.

Noting the implications of the strict application of the principle that “mistake of law is no excuse” and the relaxations made in other jurisdictions, Justice RL Narasimham suggested that mistake should be a defence where the mistake of law relates to a provision of a rule, statute, regulation or notice issued under an Act of the Legislature. The defendant’s mistake is such that it could not have been avoided with due diligence at the time.

Is the Rule Rigid And Without Exceptions?

We have already established that the maxim has its origins in ancient Roman law. At that time, the number of laws was very small and therefore easy to remember and understand. The number of laws or rules was very small and could even be counted. Therefore, the rule may be justified in such a situation. But look at the current situation. There are thousands of laws enacted by the Parliament and various states.

There are thousands of rules issued by the executive, i.e. the government. Even the Supreme Court and various higher courts have developed rules of procedure and practice, etc. There is customary law and personal law like Muslim law etc. There are hundreds and thousands of binding notices and circulars for various parties. Most importantly, we have a number of laws dictated by judges and derived from various court decisions which, as we know, are constantly changing. Even the government is not aware of the number of laws that are in force and in effect in this country.

Some of the laws, such as the Companies Act 1956 , comprise 658 sections, and in addition to this vast army of sections, there are a number of rules, regulations, notices, circulars etc. It is humanly impossible to memorise, let alone understand, this army of laws piled up before the eyes of the citizens. It is better not to say anything about the illiterate or those who understand neither English nor Hindi (laws in India are written in English and Hindi with translations into vernacular languages).

Position in England

English judges long ago set aside the maxim when the situation demanded it. Scrutton L.J. once said, “It is impossible to know all the statutory law, and scarcely possible to know all the common law”. It was also the accepted position that the rule “ignorance of the law does not excuse” cannot be invoked to escape the consequences of criminal law, but the law can take cognisance of the existence of doubtful questions of law about which a person may be ignorant. According to Lord Westbury in Cooper v. Phibbs , the word “jus” in the maxim ignorantia juris baud excusat is used in the sense of “general law, the law of the land”, not in the sense of “a private right”. The true meaning of this maxim is that parties cannot absolve themselves from liability for all the civil or criminal consequences of their actions by pleading ignorance of the law; however, it is not presumed that the parties know all the legal consequences of their actions, especially when difficult questions of law or the practice of the court are involved.

Position in United States of America

The status of the maxim in the USA is no different from that in England or India. Reference should be made to the famous Lambert v. California , a case decided by the Supreme Court of America, which held: “If this ordinance is applied to a person who has no actual knowledge of his duty to register, and unless it is shown that such knowledge is probable, it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Because of the multiplicity of statutes and regulations, it is sometimes difficult for the average citizen to know and understand the extent of the duties and obligations imposed by the tax laws. Accordingly, Congress has weakened the impact of the common law presumption by making specific intent to violate the law an element of the offence for certain federal tax offences. Thus, nearly 60 years ago, the Court interpreted the term “intentional” as used in federal criminal tax statutes to be an exception to the traditional rule. This special treatment of tax crimes is largely due to the complexity of the tax laws.  In United States v. Murdock , 290 U.S. 389 (1933), the Court recognised that: “Congress did not intend that a person should become a criminal by reason of a bona fide misunderstanding as to his tax liability, his duty to file a return, or the sufficiency of the records he kept, by his mere failure to meet the required standard of conduct.”

Position in India

Let us now look at the situation in India. India, which has been under British rule for over 200 years, has adopted British laws, albeit in a slightly modified form to suit Indian conditions and culture. Before the British takeover, Indian courts applied the personal laws of Hindus and Mohammedans in deciding legal disputes. If the litigants are Hindus, Hindu law applies, and if the litigants are Muslims, Islamic law applies. If one party is a Hindu and the other a Muslim, the law of the defendant applies. However, during British rule, Indian courts began to use English common law to resolve disputes, along with Hindu law and other purely Indian laws. By and large, however, English laws predominate. As far as the maxim is concerned, India too applied it, with exceptions. The maxim “Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat” was considered by the Supreme Court in Motilal Padampat Mills Ltd v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1979) 118 ITR 326(SC). The Supreme Court observed as follows:

“It must be remembered that there is no presumption that every person knows the law. It is often said that everyone is presumed to know the law, but that is not a correct statement: there is no such maxim known to the law.”

So, the Hon’ble Court has stated the law in very clear terms. There is no room for doubt. In a case decided by the Supreme Court, the judges openly admitted that they had never heard of the law allegedly violated by an illiterate man in a remote village. Therefore, the court acquitted the person charged with violating this law.  India has not applied the maxim bluntly.

The maxim Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat warns that people who violate the law will be punished regardless of whether they are aware of the law that prohibits or permits their activity, which may be considered a criminal offence. However, the principle behind this maxim is not that everyone should be aware of every legal provision. Rather, it is about the common good that enables the effective administration of justice.

In view of the above discussion, the author is of the view that the maxim must be applied only in appropriate cases and that the facts and circumstances of the case also justify its application. The above study on the status of the maxim in England, USA and India clearly shows that the courts are reluctant to accept the maxim bluntly. However, it cannot be completely abolished. I hold that in an appropriate case, if the circumstances clearly warrant it, the maxim Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat need not be applied and a person may be excused for his ignorance. It may not be permissible in criminal cases, but in other areas of law, it can only be applied if it is justified.

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Udita Prakash

I am Udita Prakash, pursuing a BBA LLB course from UPES, Dehradun.

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Ignorance of the law is no excuse, i.e. no defence against criminal or other proceedings arising from its breach. The Statutory Instruments Act 1946 modifies the rule slightly (see statutory instrument). See also mistake.

From:   ignorantia juris non excusat   in  A Dictionary of Law »

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ig no ran tia ju ris ne mi nem ex cu sat

Latin phrase, definition of ig no ran tia ju ris ne mi nem ex cu sat, dictionary entries near ig no ran tia ju ris ne mi nem ex cu sat.

ignorantia juris neminem excusat

ignorantism

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“Ignorantia juris neminem excusat.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ignorantia%20juris%20neminem%20excusat. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.

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