SNP may extend hate crime law despite calls to scrap it
Campaigners critical of plans to tweak ‘chaotic’ legislation to make it easier to prosecute gender cases
SNP MINISTERS are planning to extend Scotland’s controversial hate crime laws to offer more protections for transgender people. Amid calls for the legislation to be scrapped after police were swamped with thousands of complaints in its first week, the Scottish Government is proposing new legal provisions to make it easier to prosecute those who engage in “conversion practices”.
Under the planned overhaul, tryinging to “change or suppress” a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation, even as part of an attempt to help them, would become an “aggravator” in cases in which another crime was committed.
This would mean anyone convicted of another offence would face a harsher sentence, potentially on the basis of a single piece of evidence, if it could be shown that their actions were motivated by a desire to “convert” someone.
The proposal was included in a Scottish Government consultation that recently closed, and would be part of a wide-ranging ban on conversion therapy, which would be separate legislation to the hate crime law. However, the move would be intended to plug “gaps within the law” and is designed to apply to practices not covered by the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act.
The hate crime law includes current legislation on statutory aggravators, which cover transgender identity and other characteristics such as race, religion and disability.
The conversion therapy plans have been highly controversial because parents could potentially be prosecuted and face up to seven years in jail if they refused to let their child “socially transition” to live as a member of the opposite sex. The law would apply even if a parent believed they were helping the child.
“Members of the public will find it incredible that, despite the fiasco created by these hate crime laws, the Government is already considering extending them,” said Marion Calder, a director with the For Women Scotland campaign group. “Any actions to which an aggravator could be attached are already illegal. The consultation makes clear that this is simply an attempt to threaten and criminalise loving parents or medical professionals acting in a child’s best interests.
“Rather than doubling down on these draconian laws, the SNP Government should listen to women and front line police officers and scrap them.”
The Scottish Government claimed the new aggravator was needed because, under existing hate crime laws, a court would have to show that a person was motivated by “malice or illwill based on the sexual orientation or transgender identity of the victim”. In contrast, it is planned that people could be prosecuted under the conversion therapy ban even if they believed they were helping the “victim”.
The consultation stated that by creating a new aggravator, prosecutors would have “flexibility” in how they dealt with offenders, even if they had not breached the conversion or hate crime laws. It added that “evidence from a single source” would be enough to meet the threshold for a harsher sentence.
Police Scotland has yet to publish official figures for the number of hate crime reports made since the law came in on April 1. It has been reported that as many as 8,000 were made within the first week of the new hate crime laws.