Essay on Judicial Precedent (1760 Words)
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by Pragati Ghosh - Here is your essay on Judicial Precedent: Judicial Precedent is another important ... Supreme Court, High Courts, Persuasive precedents, on the other hand, is on ... of precedent in real practice and its recent value in administration of justice.
It is one of the principles of the English criminal law that to constitute guilt there must be a guilty intent along with the act itself and that a crime is not committed if the mind of the person doing the act in question be innocent. The maxim governing the above proposition is actus non facit reum, nisi mens sit rea, i.e., the act itself does not constitute guilt unless done with a guilty intent.
There must be an intention to do some act before a person can be guilty of crime. In the words of Lord Kenyon "the intent and act must both concur to constitute a crime." Thus mens rea in the case of murder means malice aforethought; in the case of theft an intention to seal and in the case of receiving stolen goods knowledge that the goods were stolen.
The maxim, therefore, connotes that the act itself does not make a man guilty unless his intention was to commit a crime. You shoot a jackal but actually killed a man behind a bush who was concealed from your view.
No offence has been committed if you were not negligent and the act will be excusable as an accident. You are working with a hatchet and the head flies, off, killing a man who is standing by.
There is no offence if you have taken proper precaution and the act is excusable as an accident. But if you kill a man under circumstances which afford you...
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