Page:Syariah Penal Code Order, 2013.pdf/26

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM GOVERNMENT GAZETTE Communication in good faith.

22. No communication made in good faith is an offence by reason of any harm to the person to whom it is made if it is made for the benefit of that person. Illustration A, a surgeon, in good faith, communicates to a patient in his opinion that he cannot live. The patient dies in consequence of the shock. A has committed no offence, though he knew it to be likely that the communication might cause the patient's death.

Act to which person is compelled by threats.

23. Except committing qatl, nothing is an offence which is done by a person who is compelled to do it by threats, which, at the time of doing it, reasonably cause the apprehension that instant death to that person will otherwise be the consequence:

Provided that the person doing the act did not of his own accord, or from a reasonable apprehension of harm to himself short of instant death, place himself in the situation by which he became subject to such constraint.

Explanation 1—A person who, of his own accord, or by reason of a threat of being beaten, joins a gang of robbers, knowing their character, is not entitled to the benefit of this exception on the ground of his having been compelled by his associates to do anything that is an offence by law.

Explanation 2—A person seized by a gang of robbers, and forced, by threat of instant death, to do a thing which is an offence by law for example, a smith compelled to take his tools and to force the door of a house for the gang-robbers to enter and commit hirabah, is entitled to the benefit of this exception.

Act causing slight harm.

24. Nothing is an offence by reason that it causes, or that it is intended to cause, or that it is known to be likely to cause any harm, if that harm is so slight that no person of ordinary sense and temper would complain of such harm. Right of private defence Nothing done in private defence etc. is an offence.

25. Nothing is an offence which is done in the exercise of the right of private defence and the right of a person. 1686