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The lawyer for an Auckland man convicted of sedition says there is still a place for such charges in modern society.
Tim Selwyn was part of a group that carried out an axe attack on Prime Minister Helen Clark's Auckland electorate office in 2004, in a protest arising from the foreshore and seabed debate.
On Thursday, a jury in the Auckland District Court found him guilty of one charge relating to a leaflet he published, calling for people to take similar action.
Selwyn's lawyer, Mark Anthony Edgar, says free speech can transcend into anti-social urging, and there will always be a need to enforce laws against that.
However, a civil libertarian says it is time to review the laws.
Head of the Auckland Council for Civil Liberties, Barry Wilson, says the sedition laws are extremely broad and should be re-examined.
Wilson says the laws are potentially a wide restraint on the public debate of politically controversial matters.
