A survey has been conducted by DPM 5 students under the subject Introduction to Criminal Law. Question posed to the respondents on “How is civil negligence different from criminal negligence”.
All of respondents agreed that civil negligence differ from criminal negligence.
Reference is made to the article Punitive Justice in the Malaysian Criminal Law written by Nasimah Hussin. It is stated that tort and criminal law are two different areas in the fields of law. It is important to note that the law compensate the action in tort which is caused by negligence while ignoring compensation in crime whereby most of it committed intentionally. Crime is considered a wrong against society while tort is a wrong to the individual.
However, all these kinds of offences whether criminal or tort are interrelated in having common results such as physical injury, emotional or psychological injury, pecuniary loss and social stigma.
Therefore, the criminal justice system should be responsive to both parties, which are the criminal and the victim. However, the criminal justice system somehow forgets about its role to create responsibility and accountability towards the damage that has been done as the criminal law only serves as the medium to punish and rehabilitate the criminal.
Based on the survey, we can observe that it is hard to distinguish between civil negligence and criminal negligence.