Yousaf U-turn on widely criticised Hate Crime Bill confirmed
Scotland’ s Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has confirmed his U-turn on the controversial Hate Crime Bill by outlining changes he wants to make to the proposed legislation.
Mr Yo us af has written to Holyrood’s justice committee, confirming details of amendments the government will lodge after an out cry about the law’s impact on freedom of expression.
Last month, after weeks of backing the Bill, Mr Yousaf accepted the draft law could be used to “prosecute entirely legitimate acts of expression”.
In his letter to MSPS he said the amendments would seek “to change the operation of the stirring up hatred offences in the Bill relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics.
"If approved by Parliament, these changes will have the effect that the stirring up hatred offences relating to these characteristics would require an intention on the par t of the accused to stir up hatred as a necessary requirement for the offence to be committed.”
Concerns had been raised about the new offence in the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill of “stirring up hatred” which would not have required proof of "intent” for an offence to be committed.
A spokesman for the Free to Disagree Campaign, Jamie Gillies, welcomed the amendments and added :“We are grateful for Mr Yo us a ff or being willing to listen to concerns from a range of stake - holders and limit the offences to ‘intent’. There are several issues remaining with the draft legislation and we look forward to working with others in the coming weeks to see these addressed.”
However, there are still concerns with the Bill which have been raised by MSPS, including terms, such as “abusive” being vague, that there’s no definition of “hatred”, that free speech protections are “inadequate” and that discussions in the home could be criminalised.
Campaigners have also asked for a “prosecution lock” as exists in the rest of the UK, where a senior law officer is required to consent to any stirring up prosecutions and said that there is too low a threshold on the "possession of inflammatory material” offences in the Bill.
The consultation on the legislation saw the highest ever number of responses to a Scottish Government Bill in the current parliamentary session, with many organisations, including the Law Society of Scotland, the Scottish Police Federation, the National Secular Society and the Roman Catholic Church, raising fears about its impact on freedom of expression.
In a major climbdown last month, the Scottish Government accepted that theun amended legislation could be used to“prose cute entirely legitimate acts of expression”.
Mr Yo us a ft old MS P she had listened to the many concerns about the new offence of “stirring up hatred” in the Bill, which would not have required proof of “intent” for an offence to be committed.
As a result, he said, the Scottish Government would make changes to the Bill to“balance protection of vulnerable groups affected by hate crime with people’s rights to freedom of expression.”