Some Bullshit from his own lecture notes
D.W.I = American legal term that is subject to a series of definitions in the penal codes of the
various states
Canadian Criminal Law
 The first source is the English common law
o Origin of the body of law used in Canada, the US and commonwealth countries
o Has had some antecedents – laws and customs that pre-date it
 Statute of frauds
o Requires that certain transactions be in writing, to alienate land sales over a
certain value etc.
 Criminal Code of Canada
o Specific references to the written English law and the common law
o Code also says common law exceptions remain and the series of positive
defences, such as necessity and entrapment
United States
 The English common law has had significant impact upon the legal systems in the US
 Americans adopted common law classifications of offences
 Some states and the model penal code have other classifications
 Many criminal procedures in the united states have common law roots
o They have grand juries
 Common law / English law practise of having petty offences tried without a jury is used
to this day
California
 Has 3 classes of offences; the felony, the felony-misdemeanor and the misdemeanor
 The felony-misdemeanour corresponds to the dual procedure system in Canada
**In Canada, the US and UK, statutes or parliamentary laws restate the common law
Criminal Jurisdiction
 Territorial jurisdiction is the theory in Canada with minor exceptions but in the united
states there are four different theories of jurisdiction; Territorial, roman, injured forum
and cosmopolitan
o Territorial: position that criminal jurisdiction is dependant on the place of
perpetration
o Roman: looks to the perpetrator – a nation has jurisdiction over its citizens
wherever the misdeed is committed
o Injured forum: emphasis on the effect of the misdeed
o Cosmopolitan: any nation has jurisdiction over any misdeed committed
anywhere by anyone
Many Statutes have replaced the common law crimes and changed them considerably:
 The offences against the person act, 1861
 The criminal law act of 1967
 The theft act, 1968
 The malicious damage act 1861
Islamic Law
 The sharia developed based on certain precepts
 One from the material source of the law was the Koran or Quran, and the examples
from the life of the prophet
 Arab governments have passed legislation renovating the traditional forms of the sharia,
but the right of religion to regulate the sphere of law is intact and usually
constitutionally enshrined
 The Koran set out certain crimes that were as much against the rules of the society as
against the religion itself
o These major crimes are, unlawful intercourse, false accusation of unlawful
intercourse, drinking wine, theft and highway robbery
o The punishment system for these crimes is called the ‘hadd’. For example it calls
for death by stoning for serious instances of crimes