Imputation (law)

In law, the principle of imputation or attribution underpins the concept that ignorantia juris non excusat—ignorance of the law does not excuse. All laws are published and available for study in all developed states. The content of the law is imputed to all persons who are within the jurisdiction, no matter how transiently.

This fiction tries to negate the unfairness of someone avoiding liability for an act or omission by simply denying knowledge of the law. The principle also arises in specific areas of law, such as criminal law and commercial law, to describe the need for the law to hold a person liable, even when they may not have known the particular circumstances that caused another person to sustain loss or damage.

To incur liability for a crime, a person must have both committed a prohibited act (the actus reus, which must be willed: see automatism) and have had an appropriate mental element (the mens rea) at the relevant time (see the technical requirement for concurrence). A key component of the mens rea is any knowledge that the alleged criminal might have had. For these purposes, knowledge can be both actual and constructive—i.e., the court can impute knowledge where appropriate.

There is no problem when the alleged criminal actually intended to cause the particular harm. Things are more difficult when the defendant denies actual knowledge. When evaluating behavior, the legal process assumes the defendant was aware of their immediate physical surroundings and understood practical cause and effect. A mens rea is imputed when a person with reasonable foresight in the same circumstances would have foreseen that the actus reus would occur. This prevents a person from raising a defence based on willful blindness (note that in the United States, wilful blindness has a slightly different meaning).

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