42. It is of some importance to note that the decision [ Wallace-Johnson v The King, is not of assistance ] in Boucher came at a time before Canada enacted the Bill of Rights 1960. Accordingly, the decision [Wallace Johnson case not of assistance ] was reached in accordance with ordinary principles of statutory interpretation, not by reference to a code of fundamental rights.
45. It is also important to note that the decision of the Privy Council in Wallace-Johnson was decided many decades before the “principle of legality” became recognised in a series of decisions by the House of Lords in the 1990s, eg R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex p Simms [2000] 2 AC 115. In one famous formulation of that principle, at p 131, Lord Hoffmann said:
“In the absence of express language or necessary implication to the contrary, the courts therefore presume that even the most general words were intended to be subject to the basic rights of the individual.”
47, the Board is of the opinion that, were such a [seditious prosecution] case to arise, there would be much to be said for the proposition that, applying the principle of legality, and quite apart from any constitutional considerations, the true interpretation of the Act is such that there is implied into it a requirement that there must be an intention to incite violence or disorder. Indeed this appeared to be accepted on behalf of the respondent at the hearing before the Board.
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