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The Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009 was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 3rd June 2009. The Act deals with hate crime motivated by prejudice on grounds of sexual orientation, transgender identity, or disability (previously law in Scotland only covered hate crime on grounds of race and religion).

We expect the new Act to come into effect early in 2010. We are working to ensure that there is good guidance for the police and for procurators fiscal on how to use the new Act.

Background

Research shows that LGBT people face disproportionate levels of certain crimes, including assault and harassment, See for example Beyond Barriers' Scotland-wide 'First Out' study.

The law on hate crimes in Scotland at present recognises only crime motivated by prejudice on grounds of race and religion. In all other parts of the UK, crime motivated by hatred on grounds of disability and sexual orientation is also covered by legislation, but not in Scotland. Our page on hate crime law gives more details.

The Equality Network was a member of the Scottish Executive's working group on hate crime, which met between summer 2003 and summer 2004, and published its report in October 2004. The report contains a number of recommendations, all of which the Equality Network endorses.

Recommendation 1 is for the introduction of a 'statutory aggravation' law for crimes motivated by malice or ill-will on grounds of sexual orientation, transgender identity, or disability. This aggravation would not make anything illegal that is not already illegal, but it would mean that where a crime like assault, vandalism, or harassment charged as breach of the peace, was motivated by hate on those grounds, this would be made clear to the court, which would take the hate motive into account on sentencing. It would also mean that there would be procedures in place for monitoring the prevalence of such crimes, and the clear-up rates.

In June 2006, the former Scottish Executive rejected this recommendation. However, the SNP, Liberal Democrats and Greens all included the recommendation in their manifestos for the Scottish Parliament election in May 2007.

Following the election, Green MSP Patrick Harvie in October 2007 lodged a proposal for a Member's Bill to implement the recommendation. The Equality Network published briefings on the proposal. By December 2007, the proposal had received the support of 45 other MSPs, many more than the 18 required for a bill to be introduced. In January 2008, the Scottish Government announced their full support for the bill. The bill was drafted by the Government working together with Patrick Harvie and was introduced in the Parliament as the Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Bill, in May 2008.

The bill was referred to the Justice and Equal Opportunities Committees of the Parliament, and both Committees took evidence on it as part of stage 1 of the bill procedure. The Equality Network submitted written evidence, and gave oral evidence, to the Justice Committee. The Equal Opportunities Committee published a report on the bill in December 2008, and the Justice Committee published its report on the bill on 5th March. On March 18th, the whole Parliament debated the general principles of the bill, and agreed to those principles unanimously, without a vote.

Stage 2, where the Justice Committee considers any amendments proposed to the bill, was on April 28th. No amendments were proposed. The final stage, stage 3, where the whole Parliament debates amendments and then whether to pass the bill, was on 3rd June 2009. Again no amendments were proposed, and the bill was passed unanimously by the Parliament.