Crimes Act 1961

Crimes against public order - Unlawful assemblies, riots, and breaches of the peace

86: Unlawful assembly

You could also call this:

"Gathering with others to cause fear or violence is against the law"

When you are with two or more other people and you all intend to do something together, you might be part of an unlawful assembly. This happens if you assemble or behave in a way that makes people nearby fear you will use violence against them or their property. You might also be part of an unlawful assembly if you provoke others to use violence without a good reason, but you are allowed to say or do things you are lawfully entitled to do.

If you are lawfully assembled with others, you can still become an unlawful assembly if you start behaving in a way that would have been unlawful from the start. However, if you are assembling to protect someone's house from people who want to break in and commit an offence, this is not considered unlawful.

If you are part of an unlawful assembly, you can be imprisoned for up to one year, as stated in the Crimes Act 1961, which was amended by the Crimes Amendment Act 2013.

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This page was last updated on 4 August 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM328559.

Topics:

Crime and justice > Criminal lawCrime and justice > Police and safety

85: Use of apparatus for making seditious documents or statements, or

"It used to be against the law to use machines or tools to make things that could upset people about the government, but this rule doesn't exist anymore."

87: Riot, or

"When six or more people act together violently, scaring others nearby, it's called a riot and they can go to jail."

Part 5Crimes against public order
Unlawful assemblies, riots, and breaches of the peace

86Unlawful assembly

An unlawful assembly is an assembly of 3 or more persons who, with intent to carry out any common purpose, assemble in such a manner, or so conduct themselves when assembled, as to cause persons in the neighbourhood of the assembly to fear, on reasonable grounds, that the persons so assembled—
will use violence against persons or property in that neighbourhood or elsewhere; or
will, by that assembly, needlessly and without reasonable cause provoke other persons to use violence against persons or property in that neighbourhood:provided that no one shall be deemed to provoke other persons needlessly and without reasonable cause by doing or saying anything that he or she is lawfully entitled to do or say.

Persons lawfully assembled may become an unlawful assembly if, with a common purpose, they conduct themselves in such a manner that their assembling would have been unlawful if they had assembled in that manner for that purpose.
An assembly of 3 or more persons for the purpose of protecting the house of any one of their number against persons threatening to break and enter that house in order to commit an offence therein is not unlawful.
Every member of an unlawful assembly is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 1 year.

Compare

1908 No 32 s 101

Notes

Section 86(1): replaced, on 1 January 1974, by section 3 of the Crimes Amendment Act 1973 (1973 No 118).
Section 86(3): amended, on 1 July 2013, by section 7 of the Crimes Amendment Act 2013 (2013 No 27).