How are we meant to know what's legal and what isn't?

Factual Questions
1

Aside from the obvious acts (e.g. murder, rape, burglary, etc.) where someone is directly harmed, how is the average person meant to know what’s legal and what isn’t? Where is a publicly available list of laws in layperson’s language?

Maybe I stink at searching but I can’t details anywhere, I checked www.law.gov.au, www.justice.qld.gov.au and www.legislation.qld.gov.au and I can’t find any answers. The first 2 just explain which government bodies do what and why, and the only one that comes close has everything in huge PDFs and indexes everything by year or the name of the act so if you’re not a lawyer who knows the name of the act and the year it was passed, you’re screwed.

Why can’t a person use ignorance as a defence if the legal code isn’t readily accessible to the general public?

2

Easy: if in doubt, consult with a lawyer. When you need medical advice you consult with a doctor. When you need advice about your car you consult with your mechanic. When you need advice about buying a new car you consult with your wife. When you need legal advice you consult with a lawyer. Easy.

3

It is readily accessible to the general public. Look here:

Australasian Legal Information Institute

4

I realize the OP referred to Australian law sites, but I though I’d speak up for US residents.

In the US, Federal law is embodied in the “United States Code”, which you can read at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/index.html
and other places, such as the Cornell Lawschool University site http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/.

It isn’t exactly a walk in the park, but the laws are written in plain English, not “lawyerese” or Latin, and can be understood with a little study. If any questions about technical details arise, it is probably wise to consult a lawyer. But by-and-large, the “law of the land” is plainly written for all to see.

~Wolfrick

5

One of the best legal resource websites out there is http://www.findlaw.com. It has access to a tremendous body of legal materials, including all U.S. jurisdictions.

It also has a link for foreign and international materials, through which I found its Australian site, http://www.findlaw.com.au.

One thing that may be a problem in searching for the “law,” is that in all jurisdictions that have a legal system that is descended from the English Common Law, the “law” is not only in statutes and regulations enacted by legislative bodies, but also in the accumulated body of judicial decisions that have intrepreted the law (both statutory law and prior judicial pronouncements of the law) over the years and centuries.

Good luck

6

The pragmatic answer to your specific question is: because if ignorance was allowed as an excuse, everyone would use it when accused of any crime less obvious than the ones you mention, and it would be very hard for the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused knew the relevant law.

Ultimately I don’t think too much injustice results. By the time you are old enough to be prosecuted, you usually understand very well what is legal and what isn’t. You may not know precisely what crime you are committing, you may not know exactly what the sentence is, but you generally have a pretty fair idea what is going to cross the line.

And if you do fall foul of an offence so obscure that it is entirely credible that you did what you did in total ignorance that you were doing something wrong, you are able to bring that to the attention of the court in in mitigation of penalty and if you are believed, you might well get off with a slap on the wrist.

I suspect that your underlying question is: how do I find out about the law?

Human society is a complex thing, laws to circumscribe it are necessarily likewise, and legal drafting is not what it should be. Between those factors, the reality is that many would not find it easy to find what the law is on a particular point even armed with an internet connection and a library.

Additionally, much of the law in Australia is common law ie based on precedent. Particularly in the criminal sphere. In Queensland, we have codified our criminal law to a significant extent. You can find it here in the Criminal Code Act. However, there are other acts all over the place that create criminal offences in particular fields. And even the Criminal Code has been pored over by courts and lawyers and “interpreted” to such a degree that it is really only the skeleton that precedent fleshes out.

So even though legislation and a hotchpotch of other legal resources are available online, the most you can say is that they may contain an encapsulation of what you are looking for, but rarely with any certainty.

To really understand the law in any given area, you need an up to date textbook. On Queensland criminal law, you need Carter’s, any law library would have it. At a more basic level, I think there’s a Queensland Law Guide put out by Caxton Legal Service and other community legal organisations (one of my partners did one of the chapters). But if you really want the full monty you need probably Halsbury’s Laws of Australia. It is I think about 17 volumes. Happy reading…

7

Do like I do… when you move to a state, read the criminal statute of that state.
I found a link from findlaw.com…
And now I’m fun at parties… I remember what crime is what grade of felony and everything.

8

[Hijack]That’s a good idea! I made me real fun at a party once. Back in college, a buddy of mine threw a party where the cops were called out. They ended up arresting him for “open house party”. He was all worried the next day and freaking out. I laughed and showed him the law they arrested him for. And then pointed out where “adult” in that situation had to be someone over 21! He was only 19 or 20 at the time, so he was not guilty of the crime. All he had to do was point that out at court and get it dismissed. I think the prosecuting attorney noticed it, and it was thrown out before he even went to court. But I relieved him of much worrying in the meantime.[/Hijack]

Back to the OP. Before the internet, I’m sure laws could be found at a library. That’s a good place to look too. Those librarians can find anything it seems.

9

Agree. And I would add that most criminal statutes are fairly common sense. In areas of the law that pose traps for the unwary, most people have the sense to find out the actual law. For example, if you buy a handgun, you’ll probably be aware that you might need some kind of license to legally carry it around.

10

In Britain you can get free legal advice from Citizens Advice Bureaux. The volunteers there are not normally qualified lawyers, but have been trained to help with many queries. I’m sure similar organisations exist in other countries.

11

Thank you all, particularly Princhester. :smiley:

12

No worries. Invoice is in the mail…

13

A dissenting opinion:

Actually, ignorance is sometimes allowed as an excuse. You aren’t required to know the local shoplifting or arson or assault statutes because a person is expected to know such things violate societal norms.

On the other hand, judges sometimes dismiss cases against innocent violators who did no harm and were reasonable in not knowing that what they did violated the law. For instance, I am familiar with cases where recent immigrants were not fined for parking by a fire hydrant; they didn’t know the funny-looking thing sticking out of the ground was a fire hydrant.

14

So what you are saying is that the immigrant made a mistake of fact, not of law. Which would be an acceptable defence under Queensland law, and probably elsewhere, but which does not detract from the point under discussion.

And even if that were not true, certainly in this jurisdiction, what you are describing is an instance of someone breaking the law, becoming liable to penalty, but being let off due to extenuating circumstances. I mentioned that this could occur above: ignorance of the law can be a point raised in mitigation of sentence (even to the point of no sentence at all) but it is not a defence to the charge in the first place.

15

people are always breaking laws, each community enacts their own specific codes or ordinances. In my town skipping stones in the river is a violation. You think you are having fun, but in reality you are filling up a riverbed. The Americans with Disabilities Act has all kinds of ways to break the Law. A lot of communities are in clear violation.