SEDITION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21574, 9 February 1940, Page 9

SEDITION

UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLIES WHAT THE LAW SAYS Sedition is devned in section 118 of the Crimes Act, which says that a seditious intention is an intention (1) to bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffecton against the King, or the Government or Constitution of the United Kingdom, or either law of, Imperial Parliament, or the Government, Constitution, or Parliament of New Zealand, or the administration of justice; or (2) to incite British subjects to attempt to procure otherwise than by lawful means the alteration of any matter affecting the Constitution, laws, or Government of United Kingdom or of New Zealand; or (3) to raise discontent or disaffection amongst British subjects; or (4) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different classes of such subjects. No one shall be deemed to have a seditious intention only because he intends to show in good faith that the Government has been misled or mistaken in its measures, or to point out errors or defects in the Government or Constitution, or in the administration of justice, or to incite people to attempt to procure by lawful means the alteration of any matter affecting the Constitution, laws, or Government or to point out, in order to have them removed, matters producing or having a tendency to produce feelings of hatred and ill-will between different classes.

Everyone is liable to two years’ imprisonment who speaks any seditious words or publishes any seditious libel or is a party to any seditious conspiracy. Section 101 of the same Act defines an unlawful assembly as an assembly of three or more persons who, with intent to carry out any common purpose, assemble in such a manner, or so conduct themselves when assembled, as to cause persons in the neighbourhood to fear, reasonably that the persons so assembled will disturb the peace tumultuously, or will, by such assembly, needlessly and without any reasonable occasion provoke other persons to disturb the peace tumultuously. Persons lawfully assembled may become an unlawful assembly if, with a common purpose, they conduct themselves in such a manner that Jieir assembling would have been unlawful if they had assembled in that manner for that purpose. Every member of an unlawful assembly is liable to one year’s imprisonment.