An Analysis of circumstances

An Analysis of circumstances Disclaimer: This work has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work produced by our Law Essay Writing Service . You can view samples of our professional work here . An analysis of circumstances Every offence require proof of the actus reus and mens rea. The question is focus on actus reus. There’re three categories which are under actus reus. Those are positive act, voluntary act and causation. The general rule is that every offence must be committed by way of a positive act. The basis of this requirement is that a person should only be found guilty for something which they actually did and not something which they fail to do. This would be in lie with the principle of responsibility. However, as stated in the question, there’re circumstances where a person can be found guilty in relation to a failure to act. The basis justification for such liability is because the defendant had a duty to act and failed in that duty. Whether such liability is in fact justified, will be discuss as follows. The first circumstance of ommission liability is that imposed under statute.Statutory duty are largely regulatory in nature as they’re enacted by the law.There are numerous examples of the courts’ construction of words to include liability for omission. In R v Sharma, a conviction for falsifying a document required for an accounting purpose contrary to the Theft Act 1968, s 17(1)(a), was upheld where the defendent omitted entirely to fill in a form which it was his duty to complete. Similarly,in R v Firth, a doctor was held to have deceived a hospital contrary to the Theft Act 1978, s 2(1) by failing to inform the hospital that certain patients were private patients. In each of the cases, liability was imposed on the defendant in relation to a failure to act in accordance with a duty which was provided for by the law. One is of the opinion that imposition of omission liability in relation to a breach of statutory duty is justify because the duty is imposed by enacted and particularly if the legislator is being guided by the principle of minimal criminalisation, these duties would only be required in order t o ensure and protect a minimal standard of public well-being and safety which is of paramount importance particularly as statutory duties are in essence regulatory. The second instance of a failure to act that can constitute the actus reus of an offence is the duties of law enforcement. It is stated that any member of law enforcement has the duty to preserve the peace and to protect the public. An example of offence of pure omission are also to be found in Dytham (1979) QB 722; a police officer was held to be guilty of a common law misdemeanour when, without justification or excuse, he failed to perform his duty to preserve the Queen’s peace by protecting a citizen who was abeing kicked to death. Likewise, in Brown (1841) Car The defendant was a normal citizen who is found guilty of an offence when he fails to respond to a constable’s call for assistance in keeping the peace. In one point’s of view, it’s court decision is reasonable in Dytham because the police officer is obling to his duty eventhough when he’s off-duty, and more importantly the incident happen during his working hours. However, one may not agree with the decision in Brown’s case because the policeman cannot assume that when a normal citizen or if the old man who’s at the scene has the phsycal ability or mental strength to stop a riot, will abet in the riot. In other words, the decision that the citizen has to make at the moment claims to be too wide as it fails to take account whether the defendant has the capacity to appreciate the risk.