The Role of Legal Presumptions in Criminal Law

We deal here with "Legal Presumption" according to its definition in The Civil Law Act 1307 AH. The scope of criminal presumption involves both the crime elements (actus reus and mens rea) and other aspects of criminal law such as criminal procedure and enforcement. Legal presumptions of criminal law play a role different from that of civil law due to the function and aim of criminal law and also principles of innocence and narrow interpretation. Accordingly 1. Legal presumptions in criminal law are considered as indicators of and paths to facts, so boundaries fade in terms of disparity between legal presumptions and judicial ones.2. Whenever there is no assertion by legislator for distinguishing between confutable legal presumptions and unconfutable ones, the more consistent solution with presumption of innocence and interpretation in favor of accused person must be adopted. This has led to the knowledge of law presumption being questioned in the field of criminal law, while the presumption is used as a definite and incontrovertible presumption in the world of law. So that although the ignorance of the law nowadays is not an obstacle to criminal conviction but is considered as one of the mitigating factors.