Under Australian law[2] a person is guilty of misprision of treason if he: (a) receives or assists another person who, to his or her knowledge, has committed treason with the intention of allowing him or her to escape punishment or apprehension; or (b) knowing that another person intends to commit treason, does not inform a constable of it within a reasonable time or use other reasonable endeavours to prevent the commission of the offence.The maximum penalty is life imprisonment.
Under section 50(1)(b) of the Canadian Criminal Code, a person is guilty of an offence (although it is not described as misprision) if: knowing that a person is about to commit high treason or treason [he] does not, with all reasonable dispatch, inform a justice of the peace or other peace officer thereof or make other reasonable efforts to prevent that person from committing high treason or treason.The maximum penalty is 14 years.
However Article 275 of the Criminal Code of Russia encourages people to come forward with information by providing them with a statutory defence to treason and other offences: A person who has committed crimes stipulated in this Article, or by Articles 276 and 278 of this Code, shall be relieved from criminal responsibility if he has facilitated the prevention of further damage to the interests of the Russian Federation by informing the governmental authorities of his own free will and in due time, or in any other way, if his actions contain no other corpus delicti.Misprision of treason is an offence under the common law of England and Wales and the common law of Northern Ireland.
But if a person not knowing of their design before, come into their company and hear their discourses, and say nothing, and never meet with them again at their consultations, that conduct is only misprision of high treason.
(For more information about the "Tonge Plot", see Intelligence and Espionage in the Reign of Charles II, 1660–1685 (Marshall, 1994)).
The crime is punishable by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 in a county jail for 16 months, or two or three years.