Unavoidable procedural questions about tort and crime
| Author | Matthew Dyson |
| Profession | Associate Professor in Law in the University of Oxford/UK |
| Pages | 385-408 |
UNAVOIDABLE PROCEDURAL QUESTIONS
ABOUT TORT AND CRIME
Matthew Dyson
Associate Professor in Law in the University of Oxford/UK: Fellow of Corpus Christi
College; Associate member of 6KBW College Hill, Research Fellow of the Utrecht Centre
for Accountability and Liability Law and a Vice President of the European Society for
Comparative Legal History.
Summary: 1. Tort and crime: clarifying the distinction. 2. The state’s role in remedies across
crime and tort. 3. 6 mandatory procedural questions across crime and tort. 4. Setting appropriate
remedial mechanisms. 5. Conclusion.
Art. 65 Codigo procesal penal de Brazil:
“Faz coisa julgada no cível a sentença penal que reconhecer ter sido o ato praticado em estado de
necessidade, em legítima defesa, em estrito cumprimento de dever legal ou no exercício regular de
direito”
Cf. Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex Police:1
“17…It is urged upon your Lordships that the criteria for self-defence in civil law should be the same
as in criminal law. In my opinion, however, this plea for consistency between the criminal law and the
civil law lacks cogency for the ends to be served by the two systems are very different. One of the main
functions of the criminal law is to identify, and provide punitive sanctions for, behaviour that is categorised
as criminal because it is damaging to the good order of society. It is fundamental to criminal law and
procedure that everyone charged with criminal behaviour should be presumed innocent until proven
guilty and that, as a general rule, no one should be punished for a crime that he or she did not intend to
commit or be punished for the consequences of an honest mistake. There are of course exceptions to these
principles but they explain, in my opinion, why a person who honestly believes that he is in danger of
an imminent deadly attack and responds violently in order to protect himself from that attack should be
able to plead self-defence as an answer to a criminal charge [even if the mistake was not reasonable]…
18 The function of the civil law of tort is different. Its main function is to identify and protect the rights
that every person is entitled to assert against, and require to be respected by, others. The rights of one
person, however, often run counter to the rights of others and the civil law, in particular the law of tort,
must then strike a balance between the conicting rights… The rules and principles dening what does
constitute legitimate self-defence must strike the balance between [the right not to be attacked and
the right to defend oneself]. The balance struck is serving a quite different purpose from that served by
the criminal law when answering the question whether the iniction of physical injury on another in
consequence of a mistaken belief by the assailant of a need for self-defence should be categorised as a
criminal offence and attract penal sanctions…”
1. [2008] UKHL 25; [2008] 1 AC 962, per Lord Scott of Foscote.
MATTHEW DYSON
386
These two quotations introduce some key features of the relationship between
tort and crime, and why it is so difficult and important. It will be obvious that the
Brazilian rule is found in a long-established code, while the same issue in England is
only really coming for determination, before the courts no less, in 2008. The Brazilian
rule states that there is a procedural outcome, a res judicata in Latin (and, as used in
England too) on a later civil case where the criminal court has determined that one of
four specific justificatory contexts existed and made what would otherwise be a crime
into something that was not a crime. That is, the civil court is bound by the substantive
outcome, of no liability, not just on findings of fact. The Brazilian rule does not, on its
face, need to allude to the possibility that civil law might have different substantive
rules to criminal law, maybe even defining the same term with different content; that is
not relevant in the face of a binding determination of the effectiveness of a justification,
once a criminal court has determined the justification exists. English law, by contrast,
in one of the many places where there is no legislative rule already, creates its rules on
the border of tort and crime through judicial decisions, and such decisions necessarily
engage with the reasoning underpinning the rule. The judge explains his view, albeit
perhaps not entirely persuasively, that criminal law looks to social order, and tort law
balances rights. It is not obvious why the rights underpinning criminal law should be
different from, or even disconnected from, those underpinning civil law. “Good order”
does not, apparently, engage with private law rights in the same way as whatever civil
law is trying to do.
What is particularly important for present purposes is that the explanation of
this substantive issue is deeply embedded within a procedural context. Without an a
priori rule like that in Brazil, English law saw a civil claim for damages where, during
a police operation, a police officer shot and killed the victim. Because it was possible
that the officer had believed he was being threatened with a gun, he was not liable
for a crime on the basis of self-defence rules granting a criminal law justification
where the defendant honestly believed he was threatened, and used reasonable force,
in proportion to that belief. In fact, the officer had been negligently briefed by his
superiors, and the victim was unarmed and indeed, naked. The family of the victim
sued in tort, arguing that the officer was liable in the tort of trespass, for unlawfully
interfering with the physical integrity of the victim. Ultimately the House of Lords
held that a different, and higher, test for self-defence applied in tort, in that the
defendant must additionally have a reasonable belief in the threat. What is more,
the civil claim was allowed to proceed even though it could not achieve greater
damages: the chief constable had admitted liability in negligence for the briefing,
so the total damages would not be any higher if the trespass claim were successful;
the claim was allowed to proceed on the basis that the claimant family were entitled
to try to establish the truth, the fact that the police office had wronged the victim,
not just negligence in the planning of the operation. The purpose of finding truth
is being shaped within a system where criminal law operates on a higher standard
of proof (“beyond reasonable doubt”, meaning you ask the jury or magistrate to be
“sure” before convicting) than civil law (“on the balance of probabilities”). That
the state must prove guilt under these conditions, in view of the penalties it can and
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