Criminal Code

Marginal note:Obstructing or violence to or arrest of officiating clergyman

• 176 (1) Every one who

  • (a) by threats or force, unlawfully obstructs or prevents or endeavours to obstruct or prevent an officiant from celebrating a religious or spiritual service or performing any other function in connection with their calling, or

  • (b) knowing that an officiant is about to perform, is on their way to perform or is returning from the perform­ance of any of the duties or functions mentioned in paragraph (a)

    • (i) assaults or offers any violence to them, or

    • (ii) arrests them on a civil process, or under the pretence of executing a civil process,

  is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

• Marginal note:Disturbing religious worship or certain meetings

  (2) Every one who wilfully disturbs or interrupts an assemblage of persons met for religious worship or for a moral, social or benevolent purpose is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

• Marginal note:Idem

  (3) Every one who, at or near a meeting referred to in subsection (2), wilfully does anything that disturbs the order or solemnity of the meeting is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.