LAWS 214Criminal Law
The general principles of criminal liability. The law relating to indictable and other selected offences chargeable under New Zealand law. Procedure on indictment and summary procedure (excluding evidence). A test may be scheduled during the mid-year examination period.
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Course details
- Dates
- 24 Feb 2025 to 9 Nov 2025
- Starts
- Trimester 1+2
- Fees
- NZ$1,924.80 for
- International fees
- NZ$9,746.10
- Lecture start times
- Monday 2.40pm
- Thursday 2.40pm
- Campus
- Pipitea
- Estimated workload
- Approximately 300 hours or 8.3 hours per week for 36 weeks
- Points
- 30
- Availability
- Limited entry
Entry restrictions
Taught by
School of Law—Faculty of Law
About this course
This course covers the general principles of criminal liability, criminalisation, and the development, operation and function of the law relating to major offences against the person and against property. It explains the most important procedural rules governing the criminal process.
Criminal law is essentially the study of harms and wrongs. By their nature, many of the offences and cases which we will cover involve considering scenarios of violence against persons, including sexual violence. This is an unavoidable aspect of the study of criminal law. Should you anticipate finding, or find, such material particularly distressing or likely to impact your study or wellbeing, please contact the Course Co-ordinator or your lecturer for advice.
The teaching programme for Trimesters 1 and 2 will cover the following (note, there may be some amendment to this order):
Trimester 1:
- Sources, scope, and definition of criminal law.
- Justifications for criminalising conduct.
- Underlying principles and practice of tikanga Māori criminal regulation.
- General principles and the bases of state criminal responsibility.
- Basic criminal procedure.
- The problematic nature of general principles.
- Basic notions of criminal responsibility: harm and culpability.
- Physical (actus reus) and mental (mens rea) elements of crime.
- Acts and omissions. The voluntary act requirement. Issues of causation
- The mental element - subjective fault elements.
- Intention, recklessness, and indifference.
- The role of mistake and intoxication and the requirement of contemporaneity of actus reus and mens rea.
- Objective and attributed liability. The place of negligence in the criminal law - “gross” and “ordinary” negligence.
- Strict and absolute liability.
Trimester 2:
- Matters of justification and excuse including common law and statutory defences
- The reform of the defences.
- Attempting, inciting, and conspiring to commit offences.
- Secondary liability for offending.
- Specific offences.
- Aims of punishment.
Course learning objectives
Students who pass this course should be able to:
Identify and discuss why we criminalise behaviour and justify criminal sanction;
Identify and discuss underlying principles and at least one practice of tikanga Māori that demonstrate criminal regulation. Students will be able to understand how tikanga approaches are dealt with in the existing criminal law of the legal system;
Identify some of the underlying principles of the criminal law;
Demonstrate a good understanding of general principles of criminal liability, including identification of actus reus and mens rea from statute;
Understand inchoate and secondary offending;
Identify the differences between justification and excuse, and developing more in-depth knowledge and understanding of some of the common defences;
Demonstrate an understanding of the operation of a selection of specific offences, which will in turn underline and reinforce what has been learnt regarding basic principles of liability.
Build skills of statutory interpretation, case analysis and analysis of criminal law problems.
How this course is taught
The teaching method will be a combination of lecture, class discussion and question and answer on the prescribed materials. Tutorials will follow the lecture topics and will mainly consist of problem-type questions for you to work through with your tutor in class. A minimum tutorial attendance is compulsory. NB: All material covered in this course, whether in lectures or tutorials and whether presented in lecture format, video, or some other form, is examinable.
The course is optimised for in-person learning with recordings available.
Assessment
- In-person Test One: 90 minutes plus ten minutes reading time. Permitted Materials: hardcopy materials only. Mark: 40%
- In-person Final Test: 120 minutes plus 10 minutes reading time. Permitted Materials: hardcopy materials only. Mark: 60%
Assessment dates and extensions
Once you've signed up to this course, you can use to see due dates for assessments and information about extensions.
Mandatory requirements
Find out what you must do to pass this course.
In addition to achieving an overall pass mark of at least 50% students must:
- Sit all in-term assessment and the final assessment. Sitting all assessment is important to ensure that we can be satisfied that you have been assessed for competency across the whole Council of Legal Education course prescription; and
- Attend the tutorial you are allocated. You must attend at least 12 of the 16 scheduled tutorials in this course. Tutorials are an important way to apply the material you learn in lectures and discuss it with your classmates to achieve the course learning objectives; and
- Complete assigned readings and participate when asked questions in class. Reading material and completing any exercises set prior to class allows you to make connections to what you hear in class, and it supports the discursive nature of the course. Class discussion is in place to help you learn and unpack material in an active way; and
- Submit both tutorial assignments – to satisfy course requirements these must be genuine attempts at a passing answer. The written tutorial assignments are an important tool in getting practice and feedback on questions like those you will encounter in summative assessments.
- If you believe that exceptional circumstances may prevent you from meeting the mandatory course requirements, contact the Course Coordinator for advice before the final assessment period. If you are at risk of not meeting the requirements above, you will receive an e-mail from the School as a warning. This will be sent to the e-mail address the University has on record.
- It is the individual responsibility of the student to contact the School promptly. Students who do not meet mandatory requirements will not receive a passing grade unless they have been granted a waiver from the School.
If you believe that exceptional circumstances may prevent you from meeting the mandatory course requirements, contact the course coordinator for advice as soon as possible.
Lecture times and rooms
What you’ll need to get
You do not need to get any texts or equipment for this course.
Who to contact
Selected offering
LAWS 214
24 Feb–9 Nov 2025
Trimester 1+2 · CRN 190