Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Bill is undergoing more revisions to protect plays and public performances from prosecution, and there may even be further protections inserted for freedom of religious expression.
Scottish Justice Secretary, Humza Yousaf said: ‘Mere expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule and insult are not on their own criminal behaviour. I’m committed to work with parliament to ensure hate crime law is effective, while protecting freedom of expression.’
Nevertheless, opposition parties pointed out that ‘the government has miles more to shift before the Bill becomes law’, and called for a ‘major overhaul of the proposals’.
Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, a judge-led review has suggested that the country should overhaul its hate crime laws to adopt a statutory aggravation model similar to that proposed in Scotland.
Judge Desmond Marrinan recommended that gender, age and variations in sex characteristics should be included as protected characteristics in the law. Gender, the Judge suggests, should be understood to include transgender identity as it is in Scotland and in England and Wales. This is despite ‘gender’ in some cases being so fluid as to change not only day by day, but even within the day (en October 2020).
This law change to include transgender identity is proposed at the same time that data published by the government showed that of the transgender individuals in prison in England and Wales, half are in prison for crimes such as rape or sexual assaults.
