Structure and Nomenclature

Abstract

This chapter discusses criminal law’s structure and working doctrines, offering some preliminary remarks about how the major legal doctrines relate to the principles identified in the previous chapter. In terms of the basic framework, it is conventional these days for common lawyers to divide up the law of crimes into three rather broad groupings: actus reus (the so-called ‘external’ or ‘physical’ elements of the crime); mens rea (the defendant’s mental state or, sometimes, the lack of it); and defences. The master question for criminal liability then becomes one of concurrence—is there a moment in time at which the actus reus and mens rea requirements of the offence are simultaneously satisfied, and there are no defences available? However, this threefold division is not clean, and the contents of each part are not independent of one another. The chapter presents a rough structural sketch of the criminal law.