06/28/2011
The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill
Outlines the Equality Network’s work on the Scottish Government’s Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Bill. The bill is also known (rather inaccurately) as the “sectarianism” bill.
This page was last updated on June 28th 2011.
The bill
The bill was introduced in the Scottish Parliament by the Scottish Government on June 16th, and was published the following day. It is being proposed as part of the Government’s response to problems in the last football season. The bill deals with offensive behaviour at football matches, and with threatening communications, for example on the internet. You can find the bill at the Scottish Parliament website.
Originally, the Scottish Government proposed to put the bill through the Scottish Parliament in a week and a half, using the emergency bill procedure. Usually, a bill would be considered by the Parliament over a period of many months. However, after a number of MSPs and organisations outwith the Parliament objected that that did not give enough time to get the bill right, the Government decided to allow much more time. The bill is now expected to pass through the Parliament by the end of November.
The bill creates two new criminal offences:
- Behaviour which is likely to incite public disorder at a football match, and which expresses, stirs up, or is motivated by hatred, or is threatening or offensive. Hatred here means hatred on any of the grounds covered by Scotland’s other hate crime laws, namely: race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity.
- Communicating material, on the internet or elsewhere, which
- threatens or incites serious violence against a person, or against persons of a particular description (this includes against LGBT people)
- or which is threatening and stirs up religious hatred.
This offence covers all forms of communication except for unrecorded speech.
The Equality Network’s work on the bill so far
In the Equality Network’s view, it is not acceptable to create an offence of threatening communication that stirs up religious hatred, without also considering the stirring up of hatred on the other grounds in existing hate crime law. New hate crime law should cover the same grounds, that is: transgender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion and race.
We also believe that the emergency bill procedure was not appropriate for this bill, because it would not have given enough time to consider significant questions about the bill, and amendments to it.
We therefore submitted written evidence about the bill to the Parliament’s Justice Committee, on June 20th. You can find our evidence attached at the foot of this page. On June 22nd we sent a briefing on our concerns to all MSPs – also attached at the foot of this page.
We gave oral evidence to the Justice Committee, on June 22nd. You can find our oral evidence to the Justice Committee here.
We submitted supplementary written evidence to the Justice Committee on June 23rd, which is also attached at the foot of this page. The supplementary evidence contains examples of threatening and homophobic communication on the internet related to football – WARNING: it contains offensive material!
On the morning of June 23rd the whole Parliament debated the general principles of the bill (the ‘stage 1 debate’). Our evidence to the Justice Committee was directly referred to by five MSPs during the debate. Those references are at columns 976, 978, 987, 988 and 1005 of the Official Report of the debate, which you can find here (1.1MB pdf file):
What happens next
At noon on June 23rd, the Scottish Government announced that the bill would be delayed. This will allow time for the Justice Committee to take further evidence on the bill over the summer.
The Justice Committee will then in the autumn consider amendments to the bill (‘stage 2’ of the bill procedure). The bill will then go back to the whole Parliament, for a debate on further amendments, and for a decision on whether to pass the bill (‘stage 3’). That will probably be in November. If passed, the bill would then come into effect by the end of the year.
We very much welcome the delay to the bill, which will help the Parliament to get it right. We will be consulting through our network during the summer, to find out people’s views on the bill, and will then submit further evidence to the Parliament.
The Justice Committee has invited further written evidence about the bill, with a deadline of August 26th. If you would like to submit evidence to the Justice Committee, the instructions to do that are here.
The Equality Network’s position on the bill
We welcome the Scottish Government’s focus on the problem of offensive behaviour, including sectarian and other hatred, at football matches, and the problem of threatening communication, including on the internet. We think that it is appropriate to introduce targeted legislation to deal with these serious issues.
Homophobic / transphobic abuse is frequently heard at football matches, and there is threatening and hate filled homophobic and transphobic material in places on the internet. We welcome the fact that most of the bill deals equally with all the forms of hatred that have previously been identified as needing legislation: that is hatred on grounds of race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and disability.
We are very concerned that the part of the bill that deals with threatening communication that is intended to stir up hatred, only covers religious hatred. Threats that are intended to stir up homophobic and transphobic hatred, on the internet (including related to football), and elsewhere, do happen. They are as unacceptable as in the case of religious hatred. That part of the bill should be extended to cover all the existing hate crime categories: disability, transgender identity, sexual orientation, religion and race.
We welcome the fact that the delay to the bill will give more time to consider other issues relating to the threatening communication offence, including whether it should cover public speaking, and whether it could affect people’s legitimate right to freedom of expression.
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