JUDGMENT OF KINGSLEY-NYINAH J.
At their arraignment and subsequent trial before his honour Festus N. Amarteifio, circuit judge, each and all of the defendants-appellants herein suffered jeopardy on charges of:
(1) Conspiracy to commit crime contrary to sections 23 (1) and 24 (1) of the Criminal Code, 1960 (Act 29);
(2) Causing harm to dead body contrary to section 285 of Act 29. The offence of conspiracy is committed under section 23 (1) of Act 29, "If two or more persons agree or act together with a common purpose for or in committing or abetting a crime, whether with or without any previous concert or deliberation . . .” In Halsbury's Laws of England (3rd ed.), Vol. 10 at pp. 310-311, para. 569 there occurs the following treatment of the offence:
[p.770]
“If two or more persons agree together to do something contrary to law, or wrongful and harmful towards another person, . . . the persons who so agree commit the crime of conspiracy . . .
The gist of the offence lies in the bare engagement and association to do an unlawful thing (that is, a thing contrary to or forbidden by law), whether that thing be criminal or not, . . .”
Turning now to the charge, we find the particulars of offence saying that the appellants “did agree and act together with a common purpose in committing a crime to wit ‘causing harm to a dead body’; . . . without lawful authority, did cause harm to the dead body of one Abla Eworho by burning the said dead body to ashes.”
Under our law the offence of conspiracy consists both in "the criminal agreement between two minds," as well also as in "the acting together in furtherance of a common criminal objective." This offence, conspiracy, postulates therefore, an act of the will, or an intention.
Section 285 of Act 29 under which the appellants stood their trial and fell convicted is placed under the general heading of "PUBLIC NUISANCES." It provides as follows:
"285. Whoever unlawfully hinders the burial of the dead body of any person, or without lawful authority in that behalf disinters, dissects, or harms the dead body of any person, or being under a duty to cause the dead body of any person to be buried, fails to perform that duty, is guilty of a misdemeanour."
This is a statutory offence of absolute prohibition, as is also section 53 (1) of the Births, Deaths and Burials Ordinance, Cap. 80 (1951 Rev.), which provides that:
"No person shall cremate or be concerned in the cremation of a corpse except such cremation is carri
