Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act is already making life difficult for the Scottish police force, who have requested permission not to comply in full until next year amid a huge surge in reported crimes. The law, it turns out, is very difficult to interpret.
According to the Act, a person has committed the criminal offense of “stirring up hatred” if he “behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider threatening, abusive or insulting,” or if he “communicates to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting.”
The maximum prison term for this crime is seven years.
However, if the person charged can prove that their behavior was “reasonable” (reasonable by whose standards?), then they’re off the hook. The law explains that “in determining whether behavior or communication was reasonable, particular regard must be had to the importance of the right to freedom of expression by virtue of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, including the general principle that the right applies to the expression of information of ideas that offend, shock or disturb.”
So, if one “reasonable person” considers certain behavior “threatening, abusive or insulting” but the person charged insists that it was “reasonable” to express ideas that “offend, shock or disturb,” then what?
Calum Steele, the general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, told the Times that, “I expect that large parts of the rise will be people taking offence at things they read on Twitter and don’t agree with.”
Steele added: “The government was too quick to reject concerns about the level of training required to deal with the complexities of the legislation, given the polarised views that exist.”
How exhausting it must be to police opinions.