diff --git a/Lib/codecs.py b/Lib/codecs.py
index a887e5d4c94..e365e6cf229 100644
--- a/Lib/codecs.py
+++ b/Lib/codecs.py
@@ -1109,21 +1109,12 @@ def make_encoding_map(decoding_map):
 
 ### error handlers
 
-try:
-    strict_errors = lookup_error("strict")
-    ignore_errors = lookup_error("ignore")
-    replace_errors = lookup_error("replace")
-    xmlcharrefreplace_errors = lookup_error("xmlcharrefreplace")
-    backslashreplace_errors = lookup_error("backslashreplace")
-    namereplace_errors = lookup_error("namereplace")
-except LookupError:
-    # In --disable-unicode builds, these error handler are missing
-    strict_errors = None
-    ignore_errors = None
-    replace_errors = None
-    xmlcharrefreplace_errors = None
-    backslashreplace_errors = None
-    namereplace_errors = None
+strict_errors = lookup_error("strict")
+ignore_errors = lookup_error("ignore")
+replace_errors = lookup_error("replace")
+xmlcharrefreplace_errors = lookup_error("xmlcharrefreplace")
+backslashreplace_errors = lookup_error("backslashreplace")
+namereplace_errors = lookup_error("namereplace")
 
 # Tell modulefinder that using codecs probably needs the encodings
 # package