Ignorance of
the law
Section 6 of the PCA states that
ignorance of the law does not afford any excuse for any act or omission which
would otherwise constitute an offence unless knowledge of the law by the
offender is expressly declared to be an element of the offence. This is
expressed in the Latin maxim “ignorantia juris non excusat” meaning
that ignorance of the law is not a defence.
R v Bailey
[1800] 68 ER. 657
The accused was convicted of a crime that Parliament
had created while he was on the high seas, and there was no way of finding out
that a law had been enacted.
The defendant committed the offence before the end of
his voyage. He could not possibly have known about the new statute (bear in
mind this is 1800).
The defence was not available to the accused and on
appeal, the judge only recommended a pardon.
In Lightfoot (1993) 97 Cr App R 24 the fact that a man does not know what is criminal and what is not cannot save him from conviction if what he does, coupled with the state of his mind, satisfies all the elements of the crime of which he is accused.
Similarly, misunderstanding the law is not a
defence as well.
The deceased and two others were arrested on
suspicion of stealing foodstuffs belonging to the appellant. The deceased were
tied with ropes and made to walk while balancing their stolen goods on their
heads. As the deceased was being matched to the Gombolala, the pot of the
deceased fell off his head and he was struck by one of the appellants on the
head. The deceased fell down and the appellants started beating him up. In that
process one of the appellants Daud incited the crowd saying; “Beat them I will face the case”. The
beating continued until the deceased and others died. The trial judge convicted
them of murder.
It was contended on behalf of some of the appellants
that since they went in answer to an alarm and behaved lawfully in assisting
the chief to arrest the thieves and convey them to the chief’s Headquarters,
they had no malice aforethought when in obedience to the chief they beat the
deceased to death.
The court was unable to accept this contention and
held that although it is the custom in Uganda and elsewhere in East Africa to
beat thieves, the appellants cannot shelter behind the invitation or order of
the chief. It was not a lawful order that they were bound to obey and they
must have known as much. The fact that the chief said that he would “face the
case” is itself an indication that he and the appellants knew that what they
were doing was wrong.
Read More: Insanity Defense
See the case of
Musa and
others v Republic [1970] 1 EA 42 (CAD
In this case, the area MP gave a public speech in his constituency where he told his audience that the remedy for cattle theft was to raise an alarm whenever such theft occurred, track the thieves and kill them and that the people who killed would be acquitted and no action will be taken against them by the government. As a result, the people searched out and killed various individuals thought to be cattle thieves. Although the appellant argued that the killing was a result of the speech by the MP, the court rejected the same and convicted them of murder holding that the mistaken belief could not be regarded as reasonable nor was it a mistake of fact.
Mistake of
facts
Under section
9 (1) of the PCA, a person who
does or omits to do an act under an honest and reasonable, but mistaken, belief
in the existence of any state of things is not criminally responsible for the
act or omission to any greater extent than if the real state of things had been
such as he or she believed to exist.
It means that when the accused committed the unlawful
act, he or she was mistaken on certain material facts.
Russell on
Crime (11th Edn.) points out that Mistakes can be admitted as a defense in
the following ways:
- That the state of things
believed would, if true, have justified the act done;
- That the mistake must be
reasonable;
- That the mistake relates
to fact and not to law.
Waera s/o
Madoya and others v R [1962] 1 EA 783 (SCK)
The appellant were employees of a farm. The police
attached to Eldoret Police Station arrested a person for stealing
a bicycle and on interrogation; he claimed the same to be at the farm. Plain-clothed officers were dispatched to recover the same. When the bicycle was
discovered, one of the appellants refused it to be taken away unless he was
paid money owed by the person whom the police had arrested. In the process, the
appellant made an alarm that there were intruders in the house who came to rob
him. The alarm was answered by the other appellants. The police officers were
tied up and taken to the nearby police where they were identified as being
police officers.
The appellants at the trial argued
that after police had discovered the bicycle which they came to recover, and
discovered that one of the appellants was owed 12/= by the person earlier
arrested by police, the police officers resorted to asking questions relating
to the amount of money inside the safe kept by the appellant. This made the
appellants suspicious and concluded that the officers were masqueraders.
None of the officers wore any obvious
items of police uniform. They never produced any warrant card or search
warrant. The trial magistrate held that the police officers were assaulted in
executing their duty and it was immaterial whether or not the appellant knew
the policemen were indeed policemen.
Rudd Ag CJ, held that; If a policeman is actually acting in the course of his duty and is assaulted or obstructed while so acting, the person who so assaulted or obstructed the policeman cannot escape criminal liability merely on the ground that he did not know that the person he assaulted or obstructed was, in fact, a policeman and acting in execution of his duty. But if he has reasonable ground for belief and honestly did believe that the person was not a policeman then he is entitled to the benefit to the extent that his honest and reasonable belief if true would have justified his actions.
The onus is on the accused to establish circumstances that are capable of justifying the conclusion that the accused acted under such a reasonable and honest mistake.
R vs. Sultani Maginga (1969) H. C. D 109
The deceased and a woman
were lying in the rice field after sexual intercourse. When Sultan was going
around to guard the field against wild pigs, he saw the movement of the grass
and called out to establish whether it was an animal or a human being. There was
no reply prompting him to throw a spear that killed the deceased.
He was held not liable in the circumstances
for killing the deceased.
Leosoni
alias Leonsion s/o Matheo v R [1961] 1 EA 364 (CAN)
Where the court noted that an accused acting
under a reasonable mistake of fact, where that mistake if true would entitle
him or her to rely on that mistake. But the accused cannot rely on a mistake of
law.
It should be noted that the burden of proof in the mistake of facts rests on the accused to produce sufficient evidence to satisfy
the court that he did a mistake and that his or her actions honest and reasonable.