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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2021
Public order as a protectable interest is an important criterion for determining a consistent and rational scope of crimes against public order. From the specific perspective of everyday life, Feinberg's theory of minimum welfare interests neglects those kinds of interests that relate to a smooth or harmonious life. Socio-legal perspectives make it clear that safety interests, which directly concern basic living (bodily existence), do not include various kinds of order interests – and thus life order interests in convenience, comfort and peace, distinguishable from safety interests that are protected by English public order laws, can be construed as the public order interest. By critically adopting Feinberg's individualistic approach to analysing public interests in three types of case, the test of being public is further clarified. Typical categories of public order are socially and normatively identified before concluding with a discussion of the effects the identification made by the paper might make to the scope and nature of public order law and offences.
I would like to thank Professor Lindsay Farmer, Professor James Chalmers, Professor Fiona Leverick and Dr Lewis Kennedy for their help during the writing and revision of this paper. This paper is supported by Program for Young Innovative Research Team in China University of Political Science and Law.
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27 Environmental Protection Act 1990, s 79(1).
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29 Similarly, ‘dust falling on vehicles’ ‘might be an inconvenience to their owner’ or users, and ‘dust in the eyes or hair even if not shown to be prejudicial to health would be an interference with personal comfort’. See J Bates et al Liability for Environmental Harm (Haywards Heath: Tottel Publishing, 2004), p 40.
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36 Police Reform Act 2002, s 29(5) (emphasis added).
37 Thacher, above n 35, pp 122–123. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, s 59, provides the power to make a public space protection order to prevent activities from affecting ‘quality of life’, and s 43 gives the power to issue a community protection notice to prevent conduct from being detrimental to the ‘quality of life’.
38 See Ormerod and Laird, n 3 above, ch 32; D Ormerod et al Blackstone's Criminal Practice 2016 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) p 664.
39 JR Spencer ‘Public nuisance – a critical examination’ (1989) 48 CLJ 55.
40 Ferguson and McDiarmid, above n 4, pp 397–398. Similarly, in a standard England textbook, offences against personal and property safety are analysed before and independently of ‘offences against public order’: Ormerod and Laird, above n 3.
41 In R v Rimmington; R v Goldstein [2006] 1 AC 459, in which it was held that ‘exercise’ means convenient use as distinct from comfortable enjoyment. Equally, statutory public nuisance protects ‘the peaceful passage through, or enjoyment of, a public place by a member of the public’, under reference to the Summary Offence Act 2005 (Queensland), s 6.
42 Law Commission Simplification of Criminal Law: Public Nuisance and Outraging Public Decency (Law Com No 358, 2015) para 4.3. Obstructing the exercise or enjoyment of rights is a kind of inconvenience or loss of amenity in item (3) and thus there is no need to list obstruction separately.
43 In this sense, the words ‘convenience’ and ‘amenity’ in the report seem more precise respectively than ‘exercise of rights’ and ‘comfort’/ ‘enjoyment of rights’ in the decision. The 2015 report thinks ‘comfort’ is wide and vague in everyday speech and even includes trivial pleasure. See Law Commission, above n 42, para 3.43. But in this paper, plain language is preferred, thus comfort and amenity are not strictly differentiated, but are interchangeable – viz comfort means amenity.
44 Bates, above n 29, p 17.
45 N Parpworth ‘Public nuisance in the environmental context’ (2008) 11 Journal of Planning and Eenvironmental Law 1526.
46 See Summary Offences Act 2005 (Queensland), s 20.
47 Law Commission, above n 42, para 3.48.
48 See RA Duff Answering for Crime, Responsibility and Liability in the Criminal Law (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2007).
49 See I Leader-Elliott ‘A critical reading of RA Duff, Answering for Crime’ (2010) 31 Adelaide Law Review 47.
50 See G Lamond ‘What is a crime?’ (2007) 4 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 609 (emphasis added).
51 See A Etzioni The Spirit of Community Rights, Responsibilities and the Communitarian Agenda (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc, 1993); The Third Way to a Good Society (London: Demos, 2000).
52 See NY Penal Law, s 485.00.
53 Section 130(3). See M Nohlander The German Criminal Code: A Modern English Translation (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2008) p 115.
54 See T Hörnle ‘Offensive behavior and German penal law’ (2001) 5 Buffalo Criminal Law Review 255.
55 See MD Dubber and T Hörnle Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) p 624 (emphasis added).
56 Ibid, p 623.
57 See Hörnle, above n 54.
58 J Feinberg, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Vol 4: Harmless Wrongdoing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) p 33.
59 Ibid, p 36.
60 Ibid, p 37.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid, pp 67–68; J Schonsheck On Criminalisation: An Essay in the Philosophy of the Criminal Law (Berlin: Springer-Science +Business Media, B V, 1994) pp 225–226.
63 Feinberg, above n 58, p 36.
64 Feinberg, above n 2, pp 222–223.
65 Ibid, p 223.
66 Ibid, p 63.
67 Ibid, p 11.
68 Ibid, pp 63–64.
69 Ibid, p 63.
70 Ibid.
71 Feinberg, above n 58, p 35.
72 Feinberg, above n 2, p 1.
73 CC Lauterwein The Limits of Criminal Law: A Comparative Analysis of Approaches to Legal Theorizing (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010) p 16.
74 Feinberg, above n 2, p 11.
75 See VA Greenfield and L Paoli ‘A framework to assess the harms of crimes’ (2013) 53 British Journal of Criminology 864.
76 Feinberg, above n 2, p 223.
77 Ibid, p 222 (emphasis added).
78 Rimmington [2006] 1 AC 459 at [36] (emphasis added).
79 A-G v PYA Quarries Ltd [1957] 2 QB 169.
80 Wesson v Washburn Iron Co 13 Allen 95 (1866) at 102.
81 Even if the beggar decides to beg just once, the potential target is indeterminate (see the third standard below).
82 People v Rubenfeld, 172 NE 485, 254 NY 245 (1930). The case is similar to sending suspected anthrax in a letter that led to the evacuation of many staff at the target address. The defendant was not convicted of public nuisance given the absence of mens rea. See R v Rimmington; R v Goldstein [2006] 1 AC 459.
83 For the case see DPP v Fearon [2010] 2 Cr App R 22.
84 See Law Commission, above n 42, para 4.11.
85 See Sztompka, above n 16, at 9.
86 Ibid, at 9–11.
87 See PR Ferguson Breach of the Peace (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013) p 111.
88 See E Fraser and N Lacey The Politics of Community: A Feminist Critique of the Liberal – Communitarian Debate (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993) p 47.
89 See B von Silva-Tarouca Larsen Setting the Watch: Privacy and the Ethics of CCTV Surveillance (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011) pp 19–20. For the personal preserves that matter most see E Goffman Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order (London: The Penguin Press, 1971) p 28 ff.
90 See Ferguson, above n 87, p 91.
91 See J Feinberg The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, vol 2: Offence to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985) pp 9–10.
92 Ibid, p 4.
93 On the contrary, severe penalty is contingent on there being a serious result. Public nuisance can be punishable vy up to life imprisonment – and this is a reason why its restatement should require public and serious adverse effect. See Law Commission, above n 42, paras 4.2–4.3.
94 See D Husak ‘The de minimis “defence” to criminal liability’ in RA Duff and S Green (eds) Philosophical Foundations of Criminal Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) p 350.
95 See American Law Institute Model Penal Code (1985) s 1.04(6).
96 See AP Simester and A von Hirsch Crimes, Harms and Wrongs: On the Principles of Criminalisation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) p 133.
97 American Law Institute, above n 95, s 2.12.
98 See Council of Europe Report on Decriminalisation (Strasbourg: European Committee on Crime Problems, 1980) p 52.
99 See Malicious Communication Act 1988, s 1.
100 For ‘considerations in labelling offences’ see J Chalmers and F Leverick ‘Fair labelling in criminal law’ (2008) 71 MLR 217.
101 Ferguson, above n 87, p 92.
102 Law Commission Simplification of Criminal Law: Public Nuisance and Outraging Public Decency (Law Com No 358, 2015) para 4.3.
103 See Harm to Others, above n 2, pp 46–47.
104 Federated Anti-Poverty Groups of BC v Vancouver (City), 2002 BCSC 105, para 161.
105 See Law on Prevention and Control of Pollution From Environmental Noise (1996), s 63(2)–(3).
106 See eg M Hornqvist ‘The birth of public order policy’ (2004) 46 Race & Class 30.
107 See Fineberg, above n 2.
108 Ibid, p 37.
109 Specific categories can be inferred from typical legislative and judicial practice. A similar approach is adopted in finding typical wrongful affronts to sensibilities. See Simester and von Hirsch, above n 96, p 97.
110 See Weekly Hansard Queensland Parliament (28 September 2004) col 2397.
111 A Eser ‘The principle of “harm” in the concept of crime: a comparative analysis of the criminally protected legal interests’ (1965) 4 Duq U L Rev 345.
112 Communication Act 2003, s 127.
113 See Law Reform Commission of Canada ‘Limits of criminal law – obscenity: a test case’ (1975) Working Paper 10, at 21.
114 BH Druzin and J Li ‘The criminalisation of lying: under what circumstances, if any, should lies be made criminal?’ (2011) 101 J Crim L & Criminology 529.
115 See X Cai ‘Comparative examination of criminal regulation of rumors’ (2015) 2 Journal of National Prosecutors College 81.
116 See Bl Comm 600.
117 See Summary Offences Act 2005 (Queensland), s 21 (in pt 5 ‘Other Offences’).
118 See Bl Comm 634.
119 Ibid.
120 Harassment can be caused by disorderly behaviour that may not lead to alarm or distress, but only lead to disruptions to external peace, thus external peace should be protected by itself. See POA 1986, ss 4A and 5.
121 See H-J Albrecht ‘Stalking – national and international legal policy and legislative development’, K Jia tr (2015) 44 Criminal Law Review (China) 429.
122 See S van der Aa ‘New trends in the criminalization of stalking in the EU Member States’ (2018) 24 European Journal of Criminal Policy Research 315.
123 See Feinberg, above n 2, pp 45–46, 55–56.
124 Ibid, p 37.
125 ‘I do not think Feinberg has been as clear about these matters as he should have been’: Thomson, J Jarvis ‘Feinberg on harm, offense, and the criminal law: a review essay’ (1986) 10 Philosophy Public Affair 381Google Scholar.
126 See Greenfield and Paoli, above n 75, at 869.
127 Inner peace is not a natural extension of the person because it rarely affects body rights such as integrity or health. Neither is it necessarily related to personality rights such as dignity and privacy.
128 See Peršak, N Criminalising Harmful Conduct (New York: Springer, 2007) p 114Google Scholar.
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130 See Garfield, L Yalof ‘The case for a criminal law theory of intentional infliction of emotional distress’ (2009) 5 AUCL Brief 33Google Scholar.
131 R (McCann and Others) v Crown Court at Manchester and Another [2003] 1 AC 787 at 806 (Lord Steyn).
132 ‘Fear may drive a burdened man for a mile, but it is only freedom that makes his load light for the long carry’: SV Benét ‘Freedom from fear’ The Saturday Evening Post (Indianapolis, 13 March 1943).
133 A threat by itself is not even preparatory conduct risking personal safety.
134 See A Öhman ‘Fear and anxiety: overlap and dissociations’ in Lewis et al, above n 129, p 710.
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136 See Law Reform Commission of Canada, above n 113, at 18.
137 This kind alarm is not a real public safety concern and thus the actor cannot be convicted of a public safety crime. The real criminality of the conduct lies in creating unreasonable fear among the public and thus breaching of the peace of the public. See the contamination of or interference with goods with intention of causing public alarm or anxiety (POA 1986, s 38).
138 In emotional knowledge, there are lists of possible stimuli of disgust: ‘… sexual behaviours, contact with death or corpses, violations of exterior envelope of the body (including gore and deformity), poor hygiene, interpersonal contamination (contact with unsavoury human being), and certain moral offenses’: P Rozin et al ‘Disgust’ in Lewis et al, above n 129, p 757.
139 Irritation or annoyance is a milder variant of anger, while fury or rage is an intensified variant, see S Schieman ‘Anger’ in JE Stets and JH Turner (eds) Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions (New York: Springer, 2006) p 494. Anger is commonly elicited by eg insults, inequity, unfairness, verbal or physical aggression (p 495).
141 See POA 1986, Pt III.
142 See Eisenberg, AK ‘Criminal infliction of emotional distress’ (2015) 113 Michigan Law Review 607Google Scholar.