10. Offences against public morals and public order

Bigamy

Section 57 of the 1861 Act: Being married, marrying another during the life of the spouse.

Proof: The prosecution must prove the first marriage, its validity, that it subsisted, and the second ceremony. A polygamous or potentially polygamous first marriage will not ground bigamy.

Mens rea: An honest and reasonable belief that the first spouse is dead, or the first marriage dissolved or void, is a defence.

Legal pluralism: A man married under customary law may not later marry another woman under the Christian or Civil Marriage Acts; but a man married under those Acts may, under customary law, take further customary wives, though the general law regards those unions as invalid.

Blasphemy and sexual morality

Blasphemy: Historically a common law misdemeanour; the gist is scurrilous vilification of the Christian religion. It is rarely if ever prosecuted today.

Other offences: Incest, brothel-keeping, living on immoral earnings and unnatural offences under the received law.

The Public Order Act 1965

Insulting conduct: Section 3 punishes threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace. In Dumbar v The State the Court of Appeal, following Ward v Holman, upheld a conviction of a politician who insulted the Prime Minister's government at a public meeting.

Offensive weapons, processions and meetings: The Act also controls these.

Seditious and defamatory libel

History: Part V of the Act created defamatory libel, false news and seditious libel. Regina v Loshak convicted a foreign journalist of seditious publication; Conteh v R allowed an appeal where the words did not defame the Prime Minister.

Current law: Part V was repealed by the Public Order (Amendment) Act 2020. Criminal and seditious libel under the Act no longer exist. Loshak and Conteh are now of historical and constitutional interest.