Practical Implications of the Enactment of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006

Abstract

Legislators have normally exercised one of two options when enacting hate crime legislation. They either provide for punishment of ordinary criminal acts to be enhanced when the offence has been committed by reason of prejudice or hatred towards the victim, or they pass an Act which establishes an entirely new substantive offence. The United Kingdom Parliament adopted the first approach under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, initially with regard to racially aggravated crimes and later in respect of religiously aggravated offences. In passing the Race and Religious Hatred Acts 2006, Parliament has taken the second approach and created a new substantive law. This paper considers the specific requirements that will need to be satisfied in order to establish the offence and some issues that arise in relation to proof of intention, relevance of motive and the nature of the language required to constitute hatred, in the light of the concession to freedom of speech contained in the statute.