Intimi- dation
and less serious form of unlawful assembly defined
in Section 12 (2). Such an amendment would go some
way towards meeting the criticism of this Section.
The matters at (a) - (e) above are dealt with in the attached
draft Saving Despatch which has been agreed with the Legal
Advisers.
6. Sections 27, 28, 29 and 30 of the Principal Ordinance
are concerned with intimidation and intimidating assembly.
They were incorporated in the Ordinance from emergency
legislation in 1967 because it was recognised that intimi-
dation was one of the main weapons used by the Communists
and that permanent legislation was required to deal with it.
Section 27 has been criticised by Justice on the grounds that
the whole of the Section is governed by the words "without
lawful excuse" which have no constant denotation and would
therefore have to be construed by the Courts. Clause 15 of
the draft Bill makes considerable amendments to the Section
and, notably, replaces the words "without lawful excuse" by
"without lawful authority or reasonable excuse". It is con-
sidered necessary to retain the provisions relating to inti-
midation, but the offence of intimidating assembly is to be
abolished in view of the fact that a person who takes part
in an intimidating assembly can be dealt with under other
provisions of the Ordinance: consequently the draft Bill
provides for the repeal of Sections 28 and 30. It is con-
sidered that these amendments ameliorate the provisions to
a considerable extent and that they should be accepted.
9.
CONFIDENTIAL