This is about the law term. For other uses see Sedition (disambiguation)
Sedition is a term of law which refers to overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by the legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent (or resistance) to lawful authority. Sedition may include any commotion, though not aimed at direct and open violence against the laws. Seditious words in writing are seditious libel. A seditionist is one who engages in or promotes the interests of sedition.
Typically, sedition is considered a subversive act, and the overt acts that may be prosecutable under sedition laws vary from one legal code to another. Where the history of these legal codes has been traced, there is also a record of the change in the definition of the elements constituting sedition at certain points in history. This overview has served to develop a sociological definition of sedition as well, within the study of state persecution.
The difference between sedition and treason consists primarily in the subjective ultimate object of the violation to the public peace. Sedition does not consist of levying war against a government nor of adhering to its enemies, giving enemies aid, and giving enemies comfort. Nor does it consist, in most representative democracies, of peaceful protest against a government, nor of attempting to change the government by democratic means (such as direct democracy or constitutional convention).
Sedition is the stirring up of rebellion against the government in power. Treason is the violation of allegiance to one's sovereign or state, giving aid to enemies, or levying war against one's state. Sedition is encouraging one's fellow citizens to rebel against their state, whereas treason is actually betraying one's country by aiding and abetting another state. Sedition laws somewhat equate to terrorism and public order laws.
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Sedition in its modern meaning first appeared in the Elizabethan Era (c. 1590) as the "notion of inciting by words or writings disaffection towards the state or constituted authority". "Sedition complements treason and martial law: while treason controls primarily the privileged, ecclesiastical opponents, priests, and Jesuits, as well as certain commoners; and martial law frightens commoners, sedition frightens intellectuals."
Australia's sedition laws were amended in anti-terrorism legislation passed on 6 December 2005, updating definitions and increasing penalties.
In late 2006, the Howard government proposed plans to amend Australia's Crimes Act 1914, introducing laws that mean artists and writers may be jailed for up to seven years if their work was considered seditious or inspired sedition either deliberately or accidentally.[1] Opponents of these laws have suggested that they could be used against legitimate dissent.
In 2006, the then Australian attorney-general Philip Ruddock had rejected calls by two reports — from a Senate committee and the Australian Law Reform Commission — to limit the sedition provisions in the Anti-Terrorism Act 2005 by requiring proof of intention to cause disaffection or violence. He had also brushed aside recommendations to curtail new clauses outlawing “urging conduct” that “assists” an “organisation or country engaged in armed hostilities” against the Australian military. The new laws, inserted into the legislation December 2005, allow for the criminalization of basic expressions of political opposition, including supporting resistance to Australian military interventions, such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Asia-Pacific region. [2]
During World War II former Mayor of Montreal Camillien Houde campaigned against conscription in Canada. On August 2, 1940, Houde publicly urged the men of Quebec to ignore the National Registration Act. Three days later, he was placed under arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on charges of sedition. After being found guilty, he was confined in internment camps in Petawawa, Ontario, and Gagetown, New Brunswick, until 1944. Upon his release on August 18, 1944, he was greeted by a cheering crowd of 50,000 Montrealers and won back his position as the Mayor of Montreal in the election in 1944.
Sedition charges were not uncommon in New Zealand early in the 20th Century. For instance, the future Prime Minister Peter Fraser had been convicted of sedition in his youth for arguing against conscription during World War I, and was imprisoned for a year. Perhaps ironically, Fraser re-introduced the conscription of troops as the Prime Minister during World War II.[3]
In New Zealand's first sedition trial in decades, Tim Selwyn was convicted of sedition (section 83 of the Crimes Act 1961) on 8 June 2006. Shortly after, in September 2006, the New Zealand Police laid a sedition charge against a Rotorua youth, Christopher Russell, 17, who was also charged with threatening to kill[4]. The Police withdrew the sedition charge when Russell agreed to plead guilty on the other charge[5].
In March 2007, Mark Paul Deason, the manager of a tavern near the University of Otago, was charged with seditious intent[6] although he was later granted diversion when he pleaded guilty to publishing a document which encourages public disorder[7] Deason ran a promotion for his tavern that offered one litre of beer for one litre of petrol. At the end of the promotion, the prize would have been a couch soaked in the petrol. It is presumed the intent was for the couch to be burned — a popular university student prank. Police also applied for Deason's liquor license to be revoked.
Following a recommendation from the New Zealand Law Commission[8], the New Zealand government announced on 7 May 2007 that the sedition law would be repealed[9]. The Crimes (Repeal of Seditious Offences) Amendment Act 2007 was passed on 24 October 2007, and entered into force on 1 January 2008. [10]
The last prosecution for sedition in the United Kingdom was in 1972, when three people were charged with seditious conspiracy and uttering seditious words for attempting to recruit people to travel to Northern Ireland to fight in support of local Catholics. The seditious conspiracy charge was dropped, but the men received suspended sentences for uttering seditious words and for offences against the Public Order Act.[11]
In 1977, a Law Commission working paper recommended that the common law offence of sedition in England and Wales be abolished. They said that they thought that this offence was redundant and that it was not necessary to have any offence of sedition.[11] However this proposal was not implemented until 2009, when sedition and seditious libel were abolished by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010).[12]
There have been 24 attempts in the United States to regulate speech that has been deemed seditious. In 1798, President John Adams signed into law the Alien and Sedition Acts, the fourth of which, the Sedition Act or "An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes against the United States" set out punishments of up to two years of imprisonment for "opposing or resisting any law of the United States" or writing or publishing "false, scandalous, and malicious writing" about the President or the U.S. Congress, but specifically not the Vice-President. This Act of Congress was allowed to expire in 1801 after the election of Thomas Jefferson to the Presidency. He had been the Vice-President at the time of the Act's passage.
In the Espionage Act of 1917, Section 3 made it a crime, punishable by up to 20 years of imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000, to willfully spread false news of the Ameircan army and navy with an intent to disrupt their operations, to foment mutiny in their ranks, or to obstruct recruiting. This Act of Congress was amended Sedition Act of 1918, which expanded the scope of the Espionage Act to any statement criticizing the Government of the United States. These Acts were upheld in 1919 in the case of Schenck v. United States, but they were largely repealed in 1921, leaving laws forbidding foreign espionage in the United States and allowing military censorship of sensitive material.
In 1940, the Alien Registration Act, or "Smith Act", was passed, which made it a crime to advocate or to teach the desirability of overthrowing the United States Government, or to be a member of any organization which does the same. It was often used against Communist Party organizations. This Act was invoked in three major cases, one of which against the Socialist Worker's Party in Minneapolis in 1941, resulting in 23 convictions, and again in what became known as the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 in which a number of pro-Nazi figures were indicted but released when the prosecution ended in a mistrial. Also, a series of trials of 140 leaders of the Communist Party USA also relied upon the terms of the "Smith Act" - beginning in 1949 - and lasting until 1957. Although the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the convictions of 11 CPUSA leaders in 1951, that same Court reversed itself in 1957 in the case of Yates v. United States, by ruling that teaching an ideal, no matter how harmful it may seem, does not equal advocating or planning its implementation. Although unused since at least 1961, the "Smith Act" remains a Federal law.
Laura Berg, a nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in New Mexico was investigated for sedition in September 2005[13] after writing a letter[14][15] to the editor of a local newspaper, accusing several national leaders of criminal negligence. Though their action was later deemed unwarranted by the director of Veteran Affairs, local human resources personnel took it upon themselves to request an FBI investigation. Ms. Berg was represented by the ACLU[16]. Charges were dropped in 2006[1].
Sedition is a punishable offense under the United States Uniform Code of Military Justice, Article 94[17].
SEDITION (Lat. se or sed, apart, and ire, to go, a going apart, dissension), in law, an attempt to disturb the tranquillity of the state. In Roman law sedition was considered as majestas or treason. In English law it is a very elastic term, including offences ranging from libel to treason (q.v.). It is rarely used except in its adjectival form, e.g. seditious libel, seditious meeting or seditious conspiracy. " As to sedition itself," says Mr Justice Stephen, " I do not think that any such offence is known to English law " (Hist. Crim. Law, vol. ii. chap. xxiv.).' The principal enactments now in force dealing with seditious offences were all passed during the last twenty-five years of the reign of George III. They are the Unlawful Oaths Act 1797, prohibiting the administering or taking of unlawful oaths (see Oath) or the belonging to an unlawful confederacy; the Unlawful Drilling Act1819-1820prohibited unlawful drilling and military exercises; and the acts for the suppression of corresponding societies, the Unlawful Societies Act 1799 and the Seditious Meetings Act 1817. No proceedings can be instituted under these last two acts without the authority of the law officers of the crown (Corresponding Societies, &c., Act, 1846). Under the head of statutes aimed at seditious offences may also be classed statutes of Richard II. (1378, 1388) against scandalum magnatum or slander of great men, such as peers, judges or great officers of state, whereby discord may arise within the realm, and a statute of Charles II. (1661) against tumultuous petitioning (see Petition). There has been no prosecution for many years for seditious words as distinguished from seditious libel, but such words have been admitted as evidence in proceedings for seditious conspiracy (q.v.), as in the prosecution of O'Connell in 1844 and of C. S. Parnell and others in 1880 (see Reg. v. Parnell, Cox's Criminal Cases, vol. xiv. 508). By the Prison Act 1877, any prisoner under sentence for sedition or seditious libel is to be treated as a misdemeanant of the first division.
I The word " sedition " occurs, however, in the Prison Act 1877, s. 40.
8 Scotland. - " All acts by which the minds of the people may be incited to defeat the government or control legislation by violent or unconstitutional means are seditious " (Macdonald, Criminal Law, 229). Sedition is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both (Punishment of Leasing-making, &c., 1825). A very large number of acts of the Scottish parliament dealt with sedition, beginning as early as 1184 with the assize of William the Lion, c. 29. Leasingmaking is to be distinguished from sedition, as it attacked only the sovereign individually, not the government.
In the acts of Congress the word " sedition " appears to occur only in the army and navy articles. A soldier joining any sedition or who, being present at any sedition, does not use his utmost endeavour to suppress the same, is punishable with death or such other punishment as a court-martial shall direct (U.S. Rev. Stats. § 1342, arts. 22, 23). A sailor uttering seditious words is punishable at the discretion of a court-martial. In 1798 an act of Congress called the Sedition Act was passed, which expired by effluxion of time in 1801. Its constitutionality was violently assailed at the time and it " was beyond all question condemned by public sentiment " as " susceptible of being used for purposes of oppression and terrorism." (See Story on the constitution of the United States, §§ 1293-1294.) Several prosecutions under the act will be found in Wharton's State Trials. Sedition is also dealt with by the state laws mostly in a very liberal spirit. Thus the Louisiana Code, § 394, enacted that " there is no such offence known to our law as defamation of the government or either of its branches, either under the name of libel, slander, seditious writing or other appellation." By § I 11, to constitute the offence of sedition " there must be not only a design to dismember the state, or to subvert or change its constitution, but an attempt must be made to do it by force. It has been held that publications which tend to degrade and vilify the constitution, to promote insurrection and circulate discontent through its members, to asperse its justice and anywise impair the exercise of its functions are seditious and are visited with the peculiar rigour of the law (1805, Respub. v. Dennie, 4 Yeates (Penna), 267). The defendant was indicted " as a factitious and seditious person of a wicked mind and unquiet and turbulent disposition and conversation, seditiously, maliciously and wilfully intending as much as in him lay to bring into contempt and hatred the independence of the United States, the constitution of this commonwealth and of the United States, to excite popular discontent and dissatisfaction against the scheme of polity instituted and upon trial in the said United States and in the said commonwealth, to molest, disturb and destroy the peace and public tranquillity of the said United States ... to condemn the principles of revolution and revile, depreciate and scandalize the characters of the revolutionary patriots and statesmen, to endanger, subvert and totally destroy the republican constitutions and free governments of the United States ... to involve (it) ... in civil war, desolation and anarchy and to procure by art and force a radical change and alteration in the principles and forms of the said constitutions and governments without the free will and concurrence of the people of the United States, and to fulfil, perfect and bring to effect his wicked, seditious and detestable intentions aforesaid he the said Joseph Dennie on the 23rd of April 1803 at the city of Philadelphia falsely, maliciously, factiously and seditiously did make, compose, write and publish the following libel, to wit, ` a democracy is scarcely tolerable at any period of national history. Its omens are always sinister and its powers are unpropitious; it was weak and wicked at Athens, it was bad in Sparta and worse in Rome.... It was tried in England and rejected with the utmost loathing and abhorrence. It is on its trial here and its issue will be civil war, desolation and anarchy.... No honest man but proclaims its fraud, and no brave man but draws his sword against its force,' &c., &c." The defendant was found not guilty.
The continental codes as a rule are little more definite than English law in their treatment of sedition. In Germany a distinction is drawn between Auflauf, the remaining together of a mob after the authorities have thrice bid it disperse, and Aufruhr or Aufstand, an organized resistance to the authorities; but no definition is given of the terms. The Hungarian penal code defines Aufstand to be an armed assembly which has the intention of attacking a class of citizens, a nationality or a religious body. The French penal code recognizes a difference between sedition and reunion seditieuse. If carried out with sufficient numbers and sufficient force sedition becomes rebellion. Section 100 exempts from the penalties of sedition those who have merely been present at a seditious meeting without taking any active part therein, and have dispersed at the first warning of the military or civil authorities.
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Categories: SCI-SED | Criminal law
   | investigated - firstamendmentcenter.org: news |
| | represented - American Civil Liberties Union : ACLU of New Mexico Defends VA Employee Accused of ‘Sedition’ Over Criticism of Bush Administration |
| | Speaking Truth to Power: An interview with Laura Berg - Speaking Truth to Power |
| | Law advice body wants to scrap crime of sedition - Law advice body wants to scrap crime of sedition - National - NZ Herald News |
| | Sedition by Example XXII: Christopher Russell - No Right Turn: Sedition by Example XXII: Christopher Russell |
| | Police move to cancel 'beer-for-petrol' publican's licence - Police move to cancel 'beer-for-petrol' publican's licence | infonews.co.nz New Zealand's local news community |
| | New Zealand repeals sedition law - New Zealand repeals sedition law - Wikinews, the free news source |
| | Government moves to repeal sedition laws - Scoop: Government moves to repeal sedition laws |
| | Uniform Code of Military Justice - US CODE: Title 10,894. Art. 94. Mutiny or sedition |
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