Came across a legal term, crimen injuria, while reading an article about South Africa this morning.

quote:

Crimen injuria is a crime under South African common law, defined to be the act of "unlawfully, intentionally and seriously impairing the dignity of another."

Latin crimen 'charge, accusation; reproach; guilt, crime'; injuria 'injury, wrong; injustice; outrage, insult' < in- 'not, un-' + jus, juris, 'law'; -men, -minis, in Latin was originally a participial suffix, cf. omen 'omen, sign, foreboding', limen 'lintel, threshhold', gramen 'grass; meadow', etc.

Good, Zmj! I've long considered the term, "injury" to be metaphoric in English, since it's literally "injustice." Not too far a stretch to see an impugning of character turned into a physical assault.

It's an interesting phrase, though I wonder how appropriate it is for "road rage." I always consider road rage to be a 50/50 situation. Almost always, if I am not mistaken, the first person cuts the second person off (though the offending action could be anything) and it escalates from there. The other examples seem to perfectly fit, though.

There's one instance of road rage that's completely one-sided here in New Jersey. Ragee, minding his/her own business, moves along at posted speed limit. Rager [apparently in a hurry] tail-gates, honks, even passes/gives finger/cuts off! I'd love to prosecute those arrogant road hogs with crimen injuria!...

So far as I know, neither Washington nor NJ has come up with a way of legislating against road rage. I imagine a legal definition of crimen injuria would be just as thorny in our multi-cultural society. Imagine, for example, trying to legally accommodate a culture whose country of origin sanctions the stoning of adulterers!

It finally dawned on me that crimen is a neuter noun, and so injuria cannot be the properly declined adjective modifying it (that would be crimen injurium). So, what is it? There is a noun injuria. Perhaps it means 'crime by injury'. Hmm.

quote:

I imagine a legal definition of crimen injuria would be just as thorny in our multi-cultural society. Imagine, for example, trying to legally accommodate a culture whose country of origin sanctions the stoning of adulterers!

Yeah, I think hashish is legal in those countries.