Speech by the Hon. the Acting Attorney General,
Mr J F Mathews,
in Legislative Council on Wednesday, 11 March 1987
Public Order (Amendment) Bill 1986
Second Reading Speech
Sir, the debate this afternoon has not unexpectedly
focussed on the proposed new section 27 in clause 2 of the Bill. Apart from the broader issues of policy, a number of more
technical legal issues have been raised which I should like to
take this opportunity to answer before the Chief Secretary
replies to this debate.
Burden of proof
2.
The real
I would like to deal first, Sir, with the question of
the burden of proof. A good deal has been said, both within this
Chamber and elsewhere, about where the burden of proof should
lie. Critics of the Government's proposals allege that they run
counter to the common law principle that the burden of proof should rest on the prosecution. But putting the point in that
way serves rather to confuse than to clarify the issue. question is whether the offence should have a mental element as one of its ingredients. The three ingredients of the offence as proposed by the Government are that there was a publication of news, that the news was false, and that the publication of the news was likely to alarm public opinion or to disturb public order. If the prosecution can prove those three things beyond reasonable doubt then, subject to the defence which I will come
to in a moment, the offence would be established.
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