from all other considerations, that the legal practitioner is in such cases exempt from disclosing the facts by reason of professional privilege, it seems more correct to say that he is so exempt because once the authorities are already aware of the facts there is no necessity for anybody to disclose. Finally, it is to be noted that according to general principles the knowledge of an intended offence and the failure to disclose the same to the authorities is an offence “per se” and not complicity in that offence if committed. Dealing with complicity last year we saw that the mere concealment of an offence committed or the mere omission to reveal an offence which is known to be planned does not in itself constitute complicity; there cannot be “negative complicity”. In other words, there cannot be complicity without some active proceeding on the part of one person towards the commission of an offence by another. But the interest of public security makes it imperative to prevent the planning or perpetrating of treasonable activities by all means and this is the justification for the severity of the provision concerning the crimes against the safety of the Government.
II. Crimes Against Public Tranquility After dealing with the crimes which directly attempt at the very life of the state, our law passes on to deal with the crimes against the public peace or tranquillity. It would be uttering a commonplace to say that the stability of public order is essential as a binding force of the body politic. Indeed, the maintenance of the public peace is the primary purpose of civil society and, in a sense, all Criminal Law is precisely intended to ensure the peace of the community. Every criminal offence generally speaking is a public wrong in that it causes a public mischief besides the private injury to one or more individuals which it may or may not also cause. This public mischief which in Continental doctrine is known as the "danno morale o mediato" of the offence consists if in nothing worse at least in causing alarm or diminishing in the subjects the sense of their own security. In this sense all criminal offences may be described as injuring the public peace or tranquillity because they all cause an apprehension in the minds of the citizens on account of their possible repetition. But there is a class of offences which produce as their immediate effect a disturbance of the public peace giving rise to a
Page 24 of 350