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by aeontech 4690 days ago
That's been the practice since Roman times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorantia_juris_non_excusat

1 comments

That was a reasonable principle up to about a century ago, when statutory law started growing out of control and drowning out other more stable and sensible sources of law.

When legislatures churn out volumes and volumes of bills every single year, "ignorantia juris non excusat" non excusat.

On top of that, what ever happened to mens rea being a necessary element of culpability? Why are all of these malum prohibitum laws strict liability offences?

Kafka wrote something about that ;)