It is always very essential to be able to distinguish between criminal laws and civil laws, and draw the lines between criminal versus civil law. This would help us understand issues as they happen around us, and would also enable us handle matters when we find ourselves in situations that need clarification for civil and criminal laws . It is not true that only law graduates, lawyers or law enforcement agents that should know how to apply or interpret the laws in given situations, we should also be able to do some amount of this. In fact, that is why you may not be able to cite ignorance as a defense at law because the law presumes that even though you are not mandated to know the whole gamut of the law, you must know legal relevance of whatever you do as it applies to the law. That is, you must know how the laws apply to whatever you choose to do at whatever time and place, at least within the ambit of your own little world and activities.
Criminal versus civil law as treated in this article only attempts to highlight some few areas of differences and similarities in the two types of laws in the society.
a. Filing a lawsuit: In a criminal case, the state or government brings action against a defendant in a law court, standing as the plaintiff and the injured party – because any criminal offense is deemed to be committed against the state or nation or government. But in civil cases, the lawsuit is filed by private individuals against another individual or state. The private individual is the plaintiff in any civil case but the government is the plaintiff in any criminal case, and the case is prosecuted by an officer of the state or government.
b. Punishment: In a criminal case, the defendant may be found guilty and punished by jailing or paying of some heavy fines or even put to death in extreme cases. But in civil case, the defendant is not jailed or sentenced to death but will only be required to pay fines as damages to the injured party.
c. Burden of proof: In a criminal case, the defendant or accused is presumed innocent until it can be proved beyond all reasonable doubts that he is guilty, and the burden of proof lies upon the state or the government. The state has to prove that this accused has committed a crime and run afoul of criminal statutes. The only exception is where the defendant claims insanity or duress and has to prove that. But in a civil case, the burden of proof is on the defendant to prove that he did not do what he is accused to have done.
These are just few that will be treated in this article but it should be noted that there are exceptions to these above-listed notes on criminal versus civil law. You may not really know the exceptions but these will be proved by lawyers when they meet in court over any particular criminal versus civil law case.