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Canada and New Zealand
This page discusses other sedition regimes
It covers -
As
with the preceding page it supplements the discussion
elsewhere on this site of censorship
and hatespeech.
 Canada
The Canadian regime derives from the UK.
Part II of the Canadian Criminal Code deals with 'Offences
against Public Order'. It includes sedition (ss. 59-61),
treason (ss. 46-50), sabotage (s. 52), incitement to mutiny
(s. 53) and an offence of intimidating Parliament or the
legislature of a province by an act of violence (s. 51).
Seditious intention encompasses everyone who
a) teaches or advocates, or
b) publishes or circulates any writing that advocates,
the use, without the authority of law, of force as a
means of accomplishing a governmental change within
Canada.
In
1951 the Supreme Court of Canada - in Boucher v The King
- held that although a leaflet by a Jehovah's Witness
was intended to engender protest and indignation against
the government (including the courts), that alone was
insufficient for a conviction -
An
intention to bring the administration of justice into
hatred and contempt or exert disaffection against it
is not sedition unless there is also the intention to
incite people to violence against it
sedition law in New Zealand
In New Zealand current restrictions on sedition under
the Crimes Act essentially prohibit only the
advocacy of violence or disobedience to law.
It is not sedition to urge any change in the law, however
radical, and political expression under the NZ Bill
of Rights Act 1986 cannot be seditious. A school
teacher was thus found not guilty of "disrespecting
the flag" after incinerating one during an anti-war
march in 2003. (The Australian flag burning regime is
discussed here.)
Section 81 of the Crimes Act currently makes
it an offence to
(a) To bring into hatred or contempt, or to excite disaffection
against, Her Majesty, or the Government of New Zealand,
or the administration of justice; or
(b) To incite the public or any persons or any class
of persons to attempt to procure otherwise than by lawful
means the alteration of any matter affecting the Constitution,
laws, or Government of New Zealand; or
(c) To incite, procure, or encourage violence, lawlessness,
or disorder; or
(d) To incite, procure, or encourage the commission
of any offence that is prejudicial to the public safety
or to the maintenance of public order; or
(e) To excite such hostility or ill will between different
classes of persons as may endanger the public safety.
The right of jury trial in sedition cases was taken away
in 1951, apparently over concerns that jury members might
not share an anti-communist zeal, but was restored in
1960.
Prior to 2004, with action against activist Tim Selwyn
for seditious conspiracy, there appear to have been no
prosecutions over the past 50 years. Earlier prosecutions
are highlighted later in this note.
Selwyn was jailed for two month in July 2006, having admitted
to conspiring to commit wilful damage when an axe was
embedded in Prime Minister Helen Clark's electoral office
window in November 2004. He had admitted in court to "having
a hand" in separate statements - variously characterised
as media releases and pamphlets - claiming responsibility
for the attack and calling for "like minded New Zealanders
to take similar action of their own".
He was concurrently sentenced to 15 months on fraud charges,
including obtaining the passport under a dead baby's name,
along with a birth certificate, benefits and four Inland
Revenue Department numbers under the names of dead people.
He used the false passport and birth certificate in 1993
and 1995 to gain NZ$11,141 in unemployment and accommodation
supplement benefits.
treason law in New Zealand
Under section 73 of the Crimes Act, treason includes
to
kill or wound the sovereign, to levy war against New
Zealand, to assist an enemy at war with New Zealand
and to use force for the purpose of overthrowing the
Government of New Zealand.
As
in Australia there have only been a handful of prosecutions.
The single execution appears to be that of Hamiora Pere
in 1869 during the Te Kooti War.
Prosecutions and imprisonment for treason were undertaken
on other occasions, with Ngawaka Taurua and 94 other Maori
men for example being tried for treason in the Supreme
Court in Wellington in 1869 following disputes about colonisation.
Taurua and 74 associates were found guilty and imprisoned
in Dunedin gaol but released in the early 1870s.
studies
For Pere see James Belich's The New Zealand Wars
(Auckland: Penguin 1988) and Judith Binney's Redemption
Songs: A Life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki (Auckland:
Auckland Uni Press 1995).
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