I see we’ve gotten back to the Sedition Act, Trinidad and Tobago! How fun!

In 2019, I wrote about the Vijay Maharaj sedition/constitution case, and why I disagreed with the High Court finding of unconstitutionality despite hating the Act. That judgment has since been overturned on appeal (duh!). I continue to hold the view that the Act is constitutional despite hating its substance and being a free speech absolutist. Now, Canadian vlogger, Christopher “ChrisMustList” Hugh has been arrested for sedition (from what I can tell).

Do I think he is guilty under section 4(1)(c) of the Sedition Act? Long story short, yes.

As a watcher of his vlogs, I recall one video in which an interviewee called for an uprising to the system. This was included in the vlog, which was published on the ChrisMustList YouTube channel. For reasons discussed in my previous Sedition Act essay linked above, the mens rea under sections 4(c) and 4(d) of the Act is not “a seditious intention,” but an intention to publish. ChrisMustList, as a vlogger, always intends to publish his vlogs. The sole question in respect of that sedition charge under subsections 4(1)(c) and (d) would, therefore, be whether the thing he published was seditious. I think a call to uprise and overthrow the system in the manner I recall in the video is, by definition, seditious. That’s the boring part.

Do I think this should be a law? No. Arresting and convicting people for acts carried out with seditious intention in the narrow sense contemplated by the Act in sections 4(1)(a) and 4(1)(b) is fine. Arresting people for passively publishing under sections 4(1)(c) and 4(1)(d) simply does not accord with the purpose of criminal law. It does not prevent, deter, reduce, or punish for the substantive crime. It does not rehabilitate criminals. It is just a law for having a law’s sake, and it gives government the power to arrest people for passively (even unknowingly) disseminating seditious content.

If we think it through, what does arresting, prosecuting, and convicting ChrisMustList do about the threatened uprising by the interviewee? Absolutely nothing. What does it do about crime or gang violence in Trinidad and Tobago? Absolutely nothing. What does it do for Trinidad and Tobago? Zip! It is convenient to arrest him because it adds a notch to the TT Police Service’s belt if they achieve a conviction, but it is simply productive unproductiveness. I find it shameful.

The more interesting conversation that we should be having is why this section of law is still on the books. Why has our Parliament not done its job by enacting up-to-date legislation to address our modern needs? The same can be said about the mandatory death penalty and other sections in the Offences Against the Person Act and the Sexual Offences Act, and several other pieces of legislation. Why do we keep having to do judicial gymnastics to get around parliamentary laziness?

I believe that there is too much job security for elected officials who have no real incentives to offer sensible policy solutions. They are reelected regardless of what they do, say, or omit to do. Can we please vote more sensibly next year? What would that even look like?