29
What is perhaps even more astonishing is that the
section applies to all fights and not merely to unlawful fights.
This means that any person who takes part in a boxing match, or
other usually lawful sport which can fairly be described as involv-
ing a fight, becomes a criminal and liable to the heavy penalty
prescribed if the fight takes place in a public place. Even if one
would approve of legislation to abolish sports involving the
intentional infliction of injury on another man this seems hardly
the proper way to set about such abolition.
Section 26
30 Once again the words "or is likely" have the effect
that the offence can be established without proving any kind of
mens rea. This is particularly undesirable in a cosmopolitan
community where an apparently innocent remark may be understood by
a hearer in an entirely different sense from that which is intended.
This objection can easily be met by altering the wording to "which
is intended or which he knows or ought to know is likely".
Such
amendment would not hamper in any way the reasonable enforcement of
public order.
Section 27
3 This and the three succeeding sections have been copied
from the very unsatisfactory Emergency (Prevention of Intimidation)
Regulations, 1967 and it is unfortunate that they have now been
re-enacted as part of our general law in this form. The whole of
this section is governed by the words "without lawful excuse",
words which have no constant denotation and which would therefore
have to be construed by the courts: see Reg. v. Leung Wing Cheung
(1958) H.K.L.R. 49 and the cases there cited. The same words in
other statutes have been so variously construed that it is virtually
impossible to foretell what construction would be adopted in this
11.