Ministerial Duty Law and Legal Definition
Ministerial duty refers to the official duty of a public officer wherein the officer has no room for the exercise of discretion, and the performance being required by direct and positive command of the law.
The powers and duties of public officers are, in general, classified as ministerial and discretionary. The character of a duty as ministerial or discretionary is to be determined by the nature of the act to be performed, and not by the office of the performer. Official duty is ministerial when it is absolute, certain, and imperative, involving merely execution of a specific duty arising from fixed and designated facts; that a necessity may exist for the ascertainment of those facts does not operate to convert the act into one discretionary in its nature. [State ex rel. School Dist. v. Ellis, 163 Neb. 86 (Neb. 1956)].
