Ignorantia legis neminem excusat
Translated from the Latin this phrase states that 'ignorance of the law excuses no-one'. It is the legal principle that simply because a person is unaware of a particular law, this does not excuse them from the penalty of breaking that law. You cannot hope to be escape punishment by claiming that you were not aware that your actions were illegal. Even if you find yourself in a foreign country, with unfamiliar laws, to be ignorant of those laws will not be sufficient for you to escape punishment for the crime. The rationale behind this principle is clear, for if ignorance were an excuse, then a person charged with a crime could simply claim that they were unaware of the law in order to avoid liability, even though in truth that were not the case.
