Chapter IV: Section 1: provides

“It is hereby enacted that whoever shall be proved to have
belonged either before or after the passing of this Act to any
gang of thugs either within or without the territories of the
East India Company shall be punished with imprisonment for life
with hard labour.”

Other precedents in English legislation are the Unlawful Societies Act of 1799 (3 George III, Chapter 79); the Seditious Meetings Act of 1817 (57 George III, Chapter 19); the Seditious Meetings Act of 1846 (9 and 10 Victoria, Chapter 33); the Public Order Act of 1936 and Defense Regulation 18(b). The last, not without opposition, was intended to protect the integrity of the British Government against the fifth-column activities of this same Nazi conspiracy.

Soviet Russia punishes as a crime the formation of and membership in a criminal gang. Criminologists of the U.S.S.R. call this crime the “crime of banditry,” a term appropriate to the German organizations.

French criminal law makes membership in subversive organizations a crime. Membership of the criminal gang is a crime in itself. (Articles 265-268, French Penal Code, “_Association de Malfaiteurs_”; Garaud, _Précis de Droit Criminel_, 1934 Edition Sirey, p. 1518 and seq. See also Act of December 18, 1893.)

For German precedents, it is neither seemly nor necessary to go to the Nazi regime. Under the Empire and the Weimar Republic, however, German jurisprudence deserved respect and it presents both statutory and juridical examples of declarations of the criminality of organizations. Among statutory examples are:

1. The German Criminal Code enacted in 1871. Section 128 was aimed against secret associations and Section 129 was directed against organizations inimical to the State.

2. The law of March 22, 1921 against paramilitary organizations.

3. The law of July 21, 1922 against organizations aimed at overthrowing the constitution of the Reich.