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SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective)

Ian Bryan

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This article conducts a review of the principal tools used in English criminal law, from the early modern period to the present, to impose limits on free expression, particularly the freedom to exhibit hate‘, in pursuit of social order and to police the boundaries at which the acceptable is segregated from the unacceptable. Against this historical backdrop, the article assesses the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, pointing to (dis)similarities with the preceding Bill and with the incitement to racial hatred measures on which the 2006 Act is modelled. The discussion also explores whether, in light of European and domestic human rights law, the English law of blasphemy should be abolished. It continues with an evaluation of how far existing public order legislation, regarding racially or religiously aggravated‘ offences, are adequate to cover the ground addressed not only by the newly enacted incitement to religious hatred offences but also both the older incitement to racial hatred legislation and the common law as to blasphemy. It is argued that conflict over the mobilisation of criminal law to promote public civility is intrinsic not only to criminal law past and present but also to any pluralist polity committed to addressing social inequality.

Publication Date

2017-04-10

Publication Title

SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours

Volume

1

Issue

2

First Page

126

Last Page

153

ISSN

1754-0445

Deposit Date

March 2017

Embargo Period

2024-09-16

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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