Aggravating Racism and Elusive Motivation

Hayes offers an international review of recent campaigns for academic freedom, in Canada, the USA and the UK, providing a roadmap or 'handbook within a handbook' to academics' future defence of academic freedom. Academic freedom is most often discussed when it is under threat, he opines. Sensational cases of individuals, who have been censored, banned, suspended or dismissed for what they argue or say, regularly hit the headlines around the world. Even wanting to debate a controversial issue can be called a 'hate crime'. He argues that fighting for academic freedom is more important in the 21st century than ever and many groups now campaign in defence of academic freedom actively support individual academics whose academic freedom is under attack. These include the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) in the USA; the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS) in Canada; Academics For Academic Freedom (AFAF) in the UK and many more. On an international level, Scholars at Risk (SAR) and the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA) campaign for academic freedom and provide support threatened and vulnerable academics. The fight for academic freedom is a thousand-year-old struggle but the biggest battles may lie ahead, he argues. The overview of recent campaigns for academic freedom undertaken in his chapter provide a guide to what defending academic freedom will require in the future if academics wish to defend the foundational freedom of their profession. His chapter provides an important clarion call for academics to take up the challenge and responsibility of being 'freedom fighters' within their universities today.

An accumulation of research evidence indicates that hate crimes are more serious than similar but otherwise motivated crimes in respect of the greater post-victimization distress for victims. Such evidence has been used by advocates of hate crime laws to justify greater penalties for hate crime offenders. However, in focusing on the commonalities of the post-victimization impacts inflicted by hate crimes, the research evidence to date has obscured the diversity of reactions between victims. Consequently, this article expands the evidence by illuminating the variation in reported victim impacts. The analysis presented uses data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales on racially motivated crime and reveals that not all victims report being affected by hate crime, not all victims are affected the same way, and some victims of racially motivated crime report less of an emotional impact than some victims of equivalent but otherwise motivated crimes. It is reasoned that in any individual case of hate crime the motivating sentiments of the offender provide an unreliable indicator of the harms inflicted on the victim. Therefore, a blanket uplift in penalty in every case which rests on the offender's motivations cannot be justified if the justification for sentence uplift is to give offenders their just deserts for the harms they inflict. Instead, the justification must rest on the culpability of the offender for the harms they may or may not actually inflict. Just as there is variation in victim impacts, there will be variation in offender culpability: Discretion and flexibility in sentencing is therefore necessary to ensure justice for offenders.

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and English Court Judgements

The decisions of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom are binding on all lower civil and criminal courts in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland, and on Scottish civil courts if the appeal emanates from Scotland. The Court decides fundamental questions concerning judge-made law (the ‘Common Law’) and questions arising from statute, including human rights legislation. The Court is not overwhelmed because it must give permission for a case to proceed to this final chamber. The main challenge facing the court is to write shorter judgments which are easier to apply.

Law of Equity

in the research the author observes the dichotomy development of the ideas and expressions that were formed during legal precedents in courts of England and the USA. It is established that the judicial procedures in the Anglo-Saxon legal system are based upon the law-regulating approach towards the concepts of the Fichte system. Based on the analysis of the law enforcement practice of the courts of the United States and England in the period from the 19th to the mid-20th century, it is noted that originally ideas and expressions were not delimited to just court cases but were indeed perceived as a single object of copyright monopoly. In the judicial practice, the use of this principle has faced difficulties in distinguishing between protected and unprotected elements. In the middle of XX century the idea/ expression dichotomy in its final law form was formed in judicial practice. The article concludes that Fichte theory was changed and accepted in the law enforcement practice of the USA and England.

ABSTRACTIn the spirit of the multiculturalism enshrined in the 2008 constitution, a number of legal instruments to fight discrimination were adopted in Ecuador and have been at the disposal of Ecuadorian socio-political actors, organizations, and state agencies. This article zeroes in on two of these legal instruments: 1) the 2009 insertion of the classification and definition of ‘hate crimes’ and ‘discrimination’ in the Código Integral Penal, and 2) the 2013 Ley Orgánica de Comunicación (Communications Law), which was an administrative law especially directed to those who publish written and visual texts in the media. Above and beyond illustrating how anti-discrimination legal instruments are actually applied in Ecuador to remedy anti-black racism in the field of everyday life, the two legal cases are approached within the multiplicity of fields of meaning they have relevance within. Both cases reveal contemporary race relations in a historically racist society in which the state has openly been instrumental for the reproduction of racist stereotypes that contribute to the making of Afro-Ecuadorians as second-class citizens. They uncover how much involved and why the relatively new, mostly urban-based, Afro-Ecuadorian middle-class has been in fighting anti-black racism. The article also points to the many limitations of contemporary legal instruments to end discrimination.

The number of hate crime cases in certain countries that was brought to the authorities' attention and was included in the official statistics of countries and relevant international organizations could be negligibly low. However, alternative databases do not provide such a serene landscape as these data sets aim to provide a more credible picture of the real volume of hate crimes. The results of the victim surveys conducted amongst members of the potential victim groups can be even more shocking. Now it is obvious that only a small number of these crime cases is officially reported and behind the high latency, numerous personal and institutional causes can be identified, most notably in relation to victims and law enforcement authorities. The main objective of this literature review is to present these reasons and barriers that authorities are facing, difficulties of enforcement in individual cases and the significant structural problems in the application of law.

English Legal System provides understanding of the operation of the legal system which is essential to the laying of a solid foundation on which to build further legal study. After offering practical advice on how to study the English legal system, there is an overview of the nature of law; the sources of law and how the English legal system operates; the courts of England and Wales, and some of the important institutions and personnel of the law. How legislation is made and how it is interpreted is discussed. How judges make law and how this process is governed by the doctrine of judicial precedent are explored. The legal precedent set by a case, the ratio decidendi, and other statements of law, obiter dicta, are explained. The book considers the impact of membership of the European Union (EU), being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and Brexit. The institutions and personnel of the law: juries, judges, and lawyers are covered. The criminal process, from arrest to trial, to sentencing, is explained and analysed. Resolution of disputes through the civil courts and tribunals is explained, as is the civil process. Alternative methods of dispute resolution are considered.

English Legal System gives an understanding of the operation of the law and the legal system which is essential to the laying of a solid foundation upon which to build further legal studies. After offering practical advice on how to study the English legal system, an overview is given of the nature of law, the sources of law, how the English legal system operates, the courts of England and Wales, and some of the important institutions and personnel of the law. How legislation is made and how it is interpreted are discussed. How judges make law and how this process is governed by the doctrine of judicial precedent are explored. The rule coming from a case, the ratio decidendi, and other statements of law, obiter dicta, are explained. The book considers the impact of membership of the European Union (EU) and being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The institutions and personnel of the law, such as juries, judges, and lawyers are covered. The criminal process, from arrest to trial to sentencing, is explained and analysed. Resolution of disputes through the civil courts and tribunals is explained, as is the civil process. Alternative methods of dispute resolution, e.g. mediation and arbitration, are also considered.

English Legal System gives an understanding of the operation of the law and the legal system which is essential to the laying of a solid foundation upon which to build further legal studies. After offering practical advice on how to study the English Legal System, an overview is given of the nature of law, the sources of law, how the English legal system operates, the courts of England and Wales, and some of the important institutions and personnel of the law. How legislation is made and how it is interpreted is discussed. How judges make law and how this process is governed by the doctrine of judicial precedent are explored. The rule coming from a case, the ratio decidendi, and other statements of law, obiter dicta, are explained. The book considers the impact of membership of the European Union (EU) and being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The institutions and personnel of the law, such as juries, judges, and lawyers are covered. The criminal process, from arrest to trial to sentencing, is explained and analysed. Resolution of disputes through the civil courts and tribunals is explained, as is the civil process. Alternative methods of dispute resolution, e.g. mediation and arbitration are also considered.

English Legal System provides understanding of the operation of the legal system which is essential to the laying of a solid foundation on which to build further legal study. After offering practical advice on how to study the English Legal System, there is an overview of the nature of law, the sources of law, how the English legal system operates, the courts of England and Wales, and some of the important institutions and personnel of the law. How legislation is made and how it is interpreted is discussed. How judges make law and how this process is governed by the doctrine of judicial precedent are explored. The legal precedent set by a case the ratio decidendi, and other statements of law, obiter dicta, are explained. The book considers the impact of membership of the European Union (EU), being a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and Brexit. The institutions and personnel of the law: juries, judges, and lawyers are covered. The criminal process, from arrest to trial, to sentencing, is explained and analysed. Resolution of disputes through the civil courts and tribunals is explained, as is the civil process. Alternative methods of dispute resolution are considered.

Our aim was to explore how (neuro)scientific understanding of addiction as a brain-disease impacts criminal sentencing decisions in courts in England and Wales, where legal rules concerning intoxication, prior-fault and mental disease conflict, and sentencing guidelines lack clarity. We hypothesized that despite significant neuropsychiatric overlap of addiction and other brain-disorders, variables in relation to etiology would moderate magistrates’ sentencing decisions in cases involving addicted offenders. Using a questionnaire-based, quantitative design, and combining frequentist and Bayesian analysis approaches, we probed court magistrates’ sentencing decisions, and underlying rationale, for defendants presenting with brain damage resulting from a (fictional) disease, addiction to heroin, or more complex, mixed etiologies. When identical neuropsychiatric profiles resulted from disease, but not heroin addiction, prison sentences were significantly reduced. Study 1 (N=109) found the pivotal factor preventing addiction from mitigating sentences was perceived choice in its acquisition; removing choice from addiction increased the odds of sentence reduction (~20- fold) and attaching choice to disease aggravated or reversed earlier leniency. Study 2 (N=276) replicated these results and found that when heroin use led to disease or vice versa, magistrates found middle ground. These differences were independent of the age of first drug use. Finally, evidence of addiction was more likely to evoke punishment considerations by magistrates, rather than rehabilitation. Consistent with legal rules relating to intoxication but running counter to norms around mental-illness and choice, our results demonstrate the need for greater clarity in sentencing guidance on addiction specifically, and mental disorders more generally.

The security and structure of Europe is at an unprecedented risk due to both political and social developments. The political involves the complex situation around “Brexit”, which is forcing Europe to reorganise its democratic structure and values, and the social includes the rising risks of terrorism, hate crime and the refugee crisis which is reinforcing a polarised climate of Euroscepticism. This chapter takes an analytical phenomenological approach to explore how these nuanced threats are affecting the stability of Europe’s framework. To achieve this the chapter explores the processes that lead to the origins of polarisation, how it has disseminated within each sphere of society (political, social, economic and technological) and the implications this has on the security structure of Europe. The chapter displays this transgression through a “social polarisation cycle” which highlights the correlation between indicators such as polarisation and its consequences which includes hate crime that can later develop into an extremist threat. As the outcome of the analysis the chapter highlights several recommendations that Europe should make to its current state, organisational, academic and policy frameworks. These developments include using a holistic approach to tackle radicalisation and hate crime, adopting a multi-agency approach between relevant organisations and stakeholders and improving the breadth of current knowledge to aid in decision-making. The outcome of these recommendations is to provide a more stable framework for Europe, in an age where unprecedented challenges are threatening its confidence and perceived value as a security society.

I Introduction Many people continue to believe (and the law increasingly agrees) that wronging others while, or as a result of, hating them ought morally to expose the wrongdoer to an increased or enhanced punishment--a penalty aggravated over what he or she ought otherwise to receive. This belief appears to be rooted in the presumption that hate crimes constitute a distinctive form of moral wrongdoing. Recently, the argument has been advanced that the distinctive wrong that obtains when crimes are committed from racial or other forms of animus consists in the violation of a conception of equality or fair treatment central to our political morality. This is the claim that I explore. It is not, I argue, as easily defended as is commonly supposed. This fact is significant, for it undermines one argument that has seemed compelling as a justification for hate-crime laws. Most hate-crime laws are structured as penalty enhancements. The precise formulation is somewhat complex, but the basic idea is that hate-crime laws add an additional layer of criminality top of ordinary crimes, whenever those ordinary crimes are done from hateful beliefs and desires. Consider the following two cases: Case One: Jones decides to commit a robbery. Jones leaves his apartment and steps into the street. Jones targets Richard Roe because Roe is gay and Jones despises gays and wants to hurt them. Jones shoves Roe into a corner, threatens him with a gun, takes one hundred dollars from him, and leaves the scene. Jones is later arrested and charged with the hate crime of bias-motivated aggravated assault. Case Two: Smith decides to commit a robbery because he wants money. Smith leaves his apartment and steps into the street. Smith targets Richard Roe because he is the first person he sees. Smith shoves Roe into a corner, threatens him with a gun, takes one hundred dollars from him, and leaves the scene. Smith is later arrested and charged with aggravated assault. Since, in Case One, Jones targeted Roe because of his sexual orientation, existing law would permit (or perhaps even require) that he receive a greater punishment, other things being equal, than would be meted out to Smith in Case Two. Hate-crime penalty enhancement schemes have been the focal point of extended debate, much of which has coalesced along two discernible dimensions. One set of discussions, the principal focus of earlier contributions to this journal, (1) concerns whether hate-crime statutes are inconsistent with constitutional standards because they proscribe or ideas deemed offensive, such that those who wish to send hateful messages would be unconstitutionally prohibited from doing so by operation of hate-crime legislation, (2) or that they would be punished merely for instantiating certain character traits. (3) Critics have insisted that enhanced punishments for hate are indefensible on their face, since such laws impermissibly punish persons for entertaining certain or beliefs. (4) According to James Jacobs and Kimberly Potter, recriminalization or sentence enhancement for the same injurious conduct when it is motivated by prejudice amounts to extra for values, beliefs, and opinions that the government deems abhorrent. (5) Some of these critical arguments are obvious nonstarters: for example, the claim that bias-crime laws improperly treat as a defining element of crime. As has often been observed, the law routinely makes an actor's a necessary element of criminality, at least if by we mean something like the person's beliefs and intentions, goals, and desires. (6) Critics of punishment for thoughts concede this much but insist that no one's should turn merely upon his entertaining certain beliefs. In one sense, of course, that is simply not what is happening: hate criminals are not being punished simply for holding beliefs, but for acting upon them. …