Intimidation of Parliament

Intimidation of Parliament is an obscure criminal law in Canada that makes it a crime to violently intimidate the Parliament of Canada and the provincial legislatures. The maximum sentence is fourteen years. It reads:

Intimidating Parliament or legislature
51. Every one who does an act of violence in order to intimidate Parliament or the legislature of a province is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.^[1]

The law is one of only a handful of criminal offences,^[2] including treason and piracy, that are automatically heard by the relevant provincial superior court—composed of federally appointed,^[3] salaried,^[4] and disciplined^[5] judges—rather than the inferior Provincial courts, which are composed of provincially appointed^[6] judges. It is a very rare crime. One of the only individuals to be charged with the crime in recent decades was Charles Yacoub who hijacked a Greyhound bus and had it driven onto Parliament Hill in 1989. In his trial Yacoub was later found not guilty of the particular charge.^[7]

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