There should never be a strict liability element in a criminal law Essay

There should never be a strict liability element in a criminal law offence. There should never be punishment without fault. C - Essay Example Criminal liability is a stringent provision since the defendants are likely to be convicted even if they were truly unaware of one or the multiple factors that labelled their acts as criminal offense. The defendants therefore, may not be  culpable  or guilty, in actual sense, i.e. absence of criminal negligence, the minimum blameworthy status within  mens rea. Thus, one may argue that strict liability in a true sense is an inappropriate use of the criminal law which, owing to the grave implications that it have on a ‘wrongly’ convicted defendant, should be made permissible only for the regulating or governing serious crimes committed by the culpable miscreants. This article will critically examine various cases and analyse whether there should not be a strict liability element within a criminal law offence, and there should never be punishment without fault. Discussion What are strict liability laws and their applications: Strict liability laws enacted in the 19th century aimed at elevating the working conditions and establishing standard safety norms within factories. The necessity to ascertain mens reas against the factory owners was not easy which culminated in very few prosecutions. The strict liability offences were created so as to tackle the factory owners more effectively and to ensure that the rate of convictions increased. In the modern context, common strict liability offences today include the driving over the prescribed speed limit and selling of alcohol to underage persons. Although the contentious issue here pertains to the fact that a person’s state of mind with which he/she acts should be made extraneous to his/her criminal liability (as opposed to the notions of how to deal with a defendant should he be proven guilty) it however, does not represent the law. This aspect is particularly relevant in the case of ‘real crimes’ where defendants are generally not held as criminally liable, for their conduct, if they are innocent (Ashworth and Blake, 1997). In a large number of offences, however, a prosecuted may face convictions even though his behaviour was unintentional, was not aware, not reckless or negligent, as regards to a necessary element of the offence charged. In such cases, an individual is liable to face punishment though there may be a total lack or absence of any wrongdoing on his part, as per the elements in question, which come under strict liability laws (Lemon, 1979). The debate: These laws are applicable either in  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœregulatory offences’  that administer social behaviour, where the stigma associated with the convicted person is minimal. The laws are also applicable in cases where the society is concerned with the harm prevention and reduction, and wants to obtain high deterrent values for a certain offense. However, a closer look at the various cases will reveal that are chances that some of the imposition of strict liability may function unjustly in cer tain isolated cases. As for example, if we study the case Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Storkwain  we will find that a pharmacist sold drugs to a patient who had produced a medical prescription that was a forged (Pharmaceutical Soc