4. Civil and criminal law

Definitions

Crime: An offence against the state. The criminal calendar includes robbery, murder, mutiny, riotous conduct and dangerous driving. Those are examples. The definition of each offence is in a statute or in the received common law, not in this list.

Civil wrong: A claim between persons. Breach of contract and unlawful dismissal are examples. The person who complains asks the court for a remedy. The state provides the court. It does not become the claimant.

Purpose

Civil: To compensate. The usual aim is to put the claimant, so far as money or an order can, in the position they would have been in had the wrong not occurred. Contract and tort do that calculation differently. Do not say every civil case is only about money. An injunction or specific performance is also a civil remedy.

Criminal: To punish, and by punishment to deter. A fine in a criminal case is paid to the state, not to the victim as if it were damages, unless a statute expressly gives the court a power to order compensation. The victim is not the client who can discontinue the case at will. The state may proceed even if the complainant wants to settle. That is the lecture's rule of thumb. Some offences and some diversion schemes qualify it. Do not write that every complainant is legally powerless.

Parties and titles

Criminal: The prosecution and the accused. In Sierra Leone the prosecution is brought in the name of the state, by the police or by state counsel from the Director of Public Prosecutions. The heading is The State v the accused. In speech, "v" in a criminal case is "versus" or "against". In England the heading is often R v the accused, or DPP v the accused. R stands for the Crown. Do not cite a made-up year as if The State v a living lecturer were a real report. The lecture's sample names are a template, not a case.

Civil: The plaintiff, also called the claimant, and the defendant. The heading is Plaintiff v Defendant. In speech, English lawyers often say "and", not "versus". That is a convention of reading a title aloud. It is not a rule of substantive law. The first name is the person who sues.

Burden of proof

Criminal: The prosecution must prove guilt. The accused is presumed innocent and does not have to prove innocence. Section 23(4) of the 1991 Constitution states the presumption. The common-law statement is Woolmington v DPP. Viscount Sankey LC called it the golden thread: it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt, subject to the defence of insanity and to any statutory exception. If, on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, the prosecution has not made out the case.

The citation: Use Woolmington v Director of Public Prosecutions [1935] AC 462. A lecture that cites it as "UKHL 1" is using a modern database label, not the law report.

Civil: The person who asserts a fact must prove it. Once the claimant has shown a prima facie case, the defendant must answer it if they are to avoid judgment. That is an evidential shift. It does not move the legal burden of the whole claim onto the defendant in every case.

Standard of proof

Criminal: Beyond reasonable doubt. Miller v Minister of Pensions [1947] 2 All ER 372 is the passage to use. Denning J said the degree need not reach certainty, but it must carry a high degree of probability. Proof beyond reasonable doubt does not mean proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. If the evidence leaves only a remote possibility in the accused's favour, which can be dismissed with the words "of course it is possible, but not in the least probable", the case is proved, but nothing short of that will suffice.

Do not use a percentage: Some lectures say the criminal standard is "98 or 99 per cent". That is not the law. Miller refuses both certainty and fanciful doubt. It does not set a number. The case name is Miller, not Milner, and the report is page 372, not 272. It is a King's Bench decision of 1947 about a war pension, used ever since for the meaning of the standard.

Civil: The balance of probabilities. The fact is more likely than not. Sierra Leone civil trials are by a judge, not by a jury, so do not write the standard as an instruction to a jury. There is no third Sierra Leone standard called "clear and convincing evidence" for fraud. That phrase is American. In the common law received here, fraud is still proved on the balance of probabilities. The more serious the allegation, the more care the judge takes before finding that the balance is met. Do not invent a higher formal standard.

Where the case is heard

Sierra Leone: There are not separate buildings for all civil work and all criminal work in the way the lecture describes for England. A magistrates' court and the High Court both hear civil and criminal business, within their jurisdiction. England's split between the magistrates' court and the Crown Court for crime, and the County Court and the High Court for civil claims, is a comparison, not a map of Freetown.

Words

Criminal: The prosecutor prosecutes. If the charge is proved, the accused is guilty and is convicted. If it is not, the accused is acquitted. "Acquitted and discharged" is the lecture's phrase for a successful defence. Use the order the court actually makes.

Civil: The plaintiff sues. If the claim is proved, the defendant is liable, not guilty. The court may award damages, an injunction, or specific performance where the law allows it.

Remedies

Criminal: Imprisonment, a fine paid to the state, or another sentence the statute allows. The death penalty is not one of them. The Abolition of the Death Penalty Act 2021 removed it. A lecture written around 2021 that still lists execution is out of date on that point. The old division into felony and misdemeanour is a teaching label for serious and lesser offences. Check the statute for the actual maximum.

Civil: The defendant is not sent to prison merely because they lose, unless a separate law of contempt or debt applies. The usual result is damages or another civil order. Punitive damages are exceptional. Do not say contract never allows them and tort always does. Say the ordinary aim is compensation, and that punishment is the criminal court's job.

One set of facts, two cases

The illustration: In the United States, O J Simpson was acquitted of murder in a criminal trial in October 1995. In a later civil trial, in 1997, he was held liable for the wrongful deaths, and the jury awarded compensatory and punitive damages, including 8.5 million dollars compensatory and 25 million dollars punitive as the lecture records them. That is a foreign illustration, not a Sierra Leone authority. It works because the criminal standard was not met and the civil standard was. An acquittal is not a finding that the defendant wins every later civil claim about the same facts.

Sierra Leone version: If the state fails to prove wounding beyond reasonable doubt, the injured person may still sue in tort and succeed on the balance of probabilities. The two courts are answering different questions.