malum prohibitum

An offense that is malum prohibitum may not appear on the face to directly violate moral standards.

An example of malum prohibitum, on the other hand, would be the statute prohibiting driving through a stop sign without coming to a complete halt.

I have no problem with doing something that is malum Prohibitum (wrong only because of the existence of a law prohibiting it).

It is distinguished from malum prohibitum, which is wrong only because it is prohibited.

Lawyers sometimes express the two concepts with the phrases malum in se and malum prohibitum respectively.

In contrast, malum prohibitum crimes are criminal not because they are inherently bad, but because the act is prohibited by the law of the state.

Roche:162 The learned Chancellor appears to have treated the preferential payment of a debt as a malum prohibitum - something illegal and wrong.

On the other hand, violations of Special Penal Laws are generally referred to as malum prohibitum or an act that is wrong because it is prohibited.

Opponents of such measures, such as OpenCarry.org, state that, much like other malum prohibitum laws banning gun-related practices, only law-abiding individuals will heed the signage and disarm.

But I would do so only after satisfying myself that it was: a) an order from legitimate authority; b) a question of malum prohibitum; and c) a rational response to the problem.

The Subcommittee received evidence that ATF primarily devoted its firearms enforcement efforts to the apprehension, upon technical malum prohibitum charges, of individuals who lack all criminal intent and knowledge.

They regard a "crime malum in se" as inherently criminal; whereas a "crime malum prohibitum" (the argument goes) counts as criminal only because the law has decreed it so.

Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: "wrong [as or because] prohibited") is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute, as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself, or malum in se.

At one point, Matty and LaBoeuf discuss the difference between malum prohibitum (something that's bad because it's illegal) and malum in se (something that's bad because it's morally wrong,) at which Rooster complains that the latter "spills the banks of English".