Division 4 Physical elements
Commonwealth Criminal Code: Guide for practitioners
With the exception of “conduct”, which is a portmanteau for “act”, “omission” and “state of affairs”, the physical elements of crime are not defined at all. The Model Criminal Code Officers Committee took a quite deliberate decision to avoid any attempt to define the meaning of “act”.16 Section 4.1, which sets out the physical elements of an offence, marks the interface between terms drawn from ordinary usage and technical legal terms which provide the analytic framework of Chapter 2.
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MCC - Ch 2: General Principles of Criminal Responsibility (1992) 9-13.
Division 4 Physical elements
4.1 Physical elements
The physical elements of an offence are the essential ingredients of liability for an offence.
4.2 Voluntariness
Offences require proof of one or more physical elements and requires proof of conduct on the part of the defendant. Since involuntary conduct cannot amount to a physical element of an offence, voluntariness is a fundamental requirement for criminal responsibility.
4.3 Omissions
There is no liability for omission in the absence of express or implied provision. Though liability for omissions can be implied, the scope of implication is limited.