LAW AND ORDER

Where the weakness lies

R. A. CLINE

Political agitations and disorderly demonstrations are 'nothing new in the history of English social and political conflict. Over a century has elapsed since the Chartists raged across Clapham Common. It would be surprising if, with our experience of suffragettes, Home Rule, the Salvation Army (in its turbulent Major Barbara days), the Mosleyites and the unemployed marchers, the criminal law were in some way deficient and half-hearted in its endeavours to contain political disorder, to maintain the Queen's peace. Surely our predecessors in law-making could not have overlooked anything.

Indeed they did not. The armoury of the criminal law is well stocked. There is a formidable array of common law and statutory offences. One can find in the criminal code a ready-made veto for restraining every disturbing departure from

the status quo, every challenge offered to the social and political norm of the age. You have only to name the misconduct and we have the offence for it.

The Public Order Act, for example, gave the police considerable powers for directing or totally prohibiting processions and demonstrations. English law gives no one the absolute right to hold a public meeting anywhere. Any obstruction of any part of the road and pavement is an offence. So is obstructing the police in the execution of its duties, and since its main duty is to preserve the Queen's peace, any threat to that peace gives a constable the duty to act and in- tervene. And the Queen's peace does not stop at the public highway. If there looks like being trouble in some private hall, the police may step in to stop a breach of the peace.

You may even be stopped from doing that which is perfectly lawful if your conduct is likely to provoke someone else into com- mitting a breach. Riot, affray, unlawful assembly, conspiracy—the law books teem with offences which make it inevitable that any outbreak of disorder is a criminal offence.

The threat to tear up cricket pitches or to obstruct the view of spectators by parading round the boundaries of the cricket field is, in particular, amply covered by existing law. The Malicious Damage Act, it is true, is directed against damage to almost every con- ceivable form of property except land itself. But since an unlawful assembly occurs wherever more than two people meet together to carry out any common purpose, lawful or unlawful, so as to cause people to fear a breach of the peace, what more is re- quired?

The Queen's peace is a comprehensive

concept and a very great deal can be done in the name of law enforcement under the ex- isting criminal law to preserve it. Indeed the police have a duty, not merely a right, to take such measures as are necessary for its maintenance. It is hard to understand why

money is now being raised by the Cricket Council for the cost of protecting cricket

grounds against the possibility that the

Queen's peace will disappear as the South Africans come in to bat. The police are paid to act as stewards at weddings and festive oc-

casions because they are, in effect, off duty on such occasions. They have no duty to at- tend, they are merely doing something on the side. But if all hell is let loose at Lord's, this

is the concern of the public, the Crown, the police, the state, not merely the Cricket Council; this is not a domestic battle but one

which can endanger the Queen's peace. So the county rates (and not voluntary subscription) should bear the burden of ensuring that the law is enforced.

It is then very questionable whether, either for electoral or genuine reasons, the Con-

servative party should waste time on argu- ment about the existing criminal law. In his pamphlet 'The Conquest of Crime' published by the Conservative Political Centre this week, Mr William Rees-Davies rdp proposes a new offence, that of malicious trespass. But malicious trespassers are already offenders under the existing laws; and there is, moreover, a serious objection to the creation of this new offence. Trespass is a civil wrong.

A sues B for damages for entering on A's land without A's consent. Now let it be sup- posed that B enters A's drill hall for a political debate, having A's consent to do so. Then B starts heckling so much that A can- not tolerate him on the premises and orders him to go. Should B then be guilty of a criminal offence? It is sufficient that he has committed a civil wrong and can be sued for damages by A. But it seems odd that by withdrawing his consent A can transform B's originally innocent conduct into criminal misconduct, especially in a political row.

The campaign for law and order can be turned into something fruitful, if we stop nagging at the existing criminal code and turn our attention to the instruments for the detection and prevention of crime. Here 'The

Conquest of Crime' has much to recommend

that is useful, the unification of the multifarious and sometimes conflicting police forces, the creation of a single nati- onal criminal investigation force, the use of computers, specialised squads and so on.

But of course such proposals leave the main issue unresolved : at what point is the expression of dissent to be treated as criminal? Where violence occurs, there is no problem. Murder and assault are crimes whether animated by political or personal motives. The Nazi was an anxious as the anti-apartheid demonstrator to recreate his contemporary society, to capture minds, to condition political responses. Sympathy with the views of the demonstrators makes it less easy to equate their conduct with the offences of a common criminal as hatred of the Nazi doctrines makes the same task easy. But they are in fact the same in both cases. Tearing up another man's turf is a crime, involving violence to property and probably also to people.

But where dissent and protest fall short of these extremes, there is no easy answer. The law enforcement agencies have to behave like nurses; they have a disordered patient who requires for his cure firmness but not bullying. We are not short of experience; we are short of nurses.