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UK
This page discusses the UK sedition and treason regimes.
It covers -
As
with the preceding page it supplements the discussion
elsewhere on this site of censorship
and hatespeech.
 evolution
UK sedition law crystallised under the Tudors and Stuarts
(eg the statutory offence of sedition was first created
in 1606 by the Star Chamber's 1606 de Libellis Famosis
decision on seditious libel) after use of the more diffuse
1351 English Statute of Treasons, with elaboration
during subsequent dynasties at times of crisis such as
the Napoleonic Wars and chartist agitation.
Legislation under George III for example made it an offence
to use any words to excite hatred and contempt of the
king, government or constitution, particularly speech
that might have a "tendency" to cause disloyalty
in the armed forces. The Old Bailey Proceedings
indicate that 50 people were tried for "seditious
words" in London from 1688 to 1794; a greater number
were sentenced and deported
to destinations such as Australia during the following
50 years under legislation such as the 1819 'Six Acts'
in England (including the Blasphemous & Seditious
Libel Act).
The Treason Felony Act 1848 made it a serious
offence, punishable by transportation, to call in print
or writing for the establishment of a republic, even by
peaceful means. As of 2004 it remained in force (athough
last used in 1883), with life imprisonment as the maximum
penalty.
UK anti-sedition legislation was strengthened during 1917
and throughout the century, although there were few prosecutions.
The Terrorism Act 2000 outlaws certain UK and
international terrorist groups, gives police enhanced
powers to investigate terrorism (including wider stop
& search and detention powers), and creates new criminal
offences, including " inciting terrorist acts",
"seeking or providing training for terrorist purposes
at home or overseas" and "providing instruction
or training in the use of firearms, explosives or chemical,
biological or nuclear weapons".
The 1351 Treason Act , as subsequently amended,
indicates that a person is guilty of treason if, among
other things, that person -
- "levies
war against the Sovereign in Her realm, or is adherent
to the Sovereign's enemies", including conduct
that tends to strengthen the monarch's enemies and sending
money to her enemies
- "compasses
or imagines [ie plans] the death of the Sovereign".
- "violates
the King's wife or the Sovereign's eldest daughter unmarried
or the wife of the Sovereign's eldest son and heir",
with or without the consent of those women
- "slays
the chancellor, treasurer, or the king's justices"
while carrying out their duties.
It
applies to anyone who owes allegiance to the Crown, including
all British subjects, any non-citizen resident within
the realm, any resident alien who goes abroad leaving
family or effects within the realm or using a British
passport.
Application of the law has varied. English courts held
in 1477 that it was treason for a person to use magic
to prophesy the monarch's death, on the basis that the
King's life might be shortened by the grief the prophesies
caused him.
Treason, under the Succession Act of 1534, included
acting or writing anything to the prejudice, slander,
disturbance, and derogation of Henry VIII's marriage to
Anne Boleyn. That Act became inconvenient when Anne lost
her head in 1536; it then became treason to slander Henry's
marriage with Queen Jane. A second Treason Act of 1534
made it possible to commit treason
through a private expression of opinion, with Sir Thomas
More for example being convicted for evasive responses
to questions about the head of the Church. A 1541 statute
(repealed in 1547 as "very strait, sore, extreme
and terrible") extended treason to include failing
to alert the King to the sexual incontinence of his future
bride.
As recently as 2003 the law lords upheld an attempt by
UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to halt the Guardian's
attempt to declare section 3 of the Treason Felony
Act 1848 incompatible with the Human Rights Act
1998 on the grounds that the older enactment was
an obstacle to freedom of speech.
The 1848 Act makes it a criminal offence, punishable by
life imprisonment, to advocate abolition of the monarchy
in print, even by peaceful means. At the time of passage
it featured provisions that
If any person whatsoever shall, within the United Kingdom
or without, compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend
to deprive or depose our Most Gracious Lady the Queen,
... from the style, honour, or royal name of the imperial
crown of the United Kingdom, or of any other of her
Majesty's dominions and countries, or to levy war against
her Majesty ... within any part of the United Kingdom,
in order by force or constraint to compel her to change
her ... measures or counsels, or in order to put any
force or constraint upon or in order to intimidate or
overawe both Houses or either House of Parliament, or
to move or stir any foreigner or stranger with force
to invade the United Kingdom or any other of her Majesty's
dominions or countries under the obeisance of her Majesty
... and such compassings, imaginations, inventions,
devices, or intentions, or any of them, shall express,
utter, or declare, by publishing any printing or writing
... or by any overt act or deed, every person so offending
shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof
shall be liable to be transported beyond the seas for
the term of his or her natural life.
studies
The major works on the 1351 statute and pre-1604 law are
John Bellamy's The Tudor Law of Treason: An Introduction
(London: Routledge 1979) and The Law of Treason in
England in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni Press 2004). For the 1640s and beyond see in particular
D. Alan Orr's Treason & the State: Law, Politics
and Ideology in the English Civil War (Cambridge:
Cambridge Uni Press 2002) and Defining A British State:
Treason and National Identity, 1608-1820 (London:
Palgrave 2001) by Lisa Steffen .
For 1790s anxieties see John Barrell's Imagining the
King's Death: Figurative Treason, Fantasies of Regicide
1793-1796 (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2000.
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