Roughly 70 people attended the “engagement event” organised today by the Safer Communities Directorate - they invited voluntary/third sector, youth organisations, the police, teaching bodies; trades unions; football supporters; football club representatives; campaigning organisations and so forth.
I recognised people from the East Fife, Falkirk, Killie and Raith trusts - and myself and Gordon Stewart from the Rangers Supporters Trust attended. Defo a very big majority of non-football bods. It’s interesting to note that the invite to this consultation only arrived on Wednesday night.
The bill itself only runs to five pages of actual material outlining offenses, powers and sentences. It is split into two main parts - one dealing with offensive behaviour at football - and one regarding threats issued over the internet.
THE MAIN POINTS OF THE LEGISLATION
The stated aims of the legislation are to create two new offences.
1/OFFENSIVE BEHAVIOUR RELATING TO FOOTBALL
The offence applies to anyone - including players, officials and supporters behaving in a threatening or offensive way, which is likely to incite public disorder. The offence can be committed in a football ground, traveling to or from a ground - or even in a pub where a game is being televised.
The behaviour under examination can be expressing or inciting hatred by singing, chanting, or the displaying of flags/banners - whether these are racist or sectarian or otherwise offensive to a “reasonable person.”
2/THREATENING COMMUNICATIONS VIA THE INTERNET
Under Sots Law threatening behaviour has traditionally been covered by the law on “Uttering Threats.” This new offence of Threatening Communications includes implied threats - and relates to those which can threaten serious violence or death; incites others to kill or commit a seriously violent act; or are intended to stir up religious hatred.
THE PENALTIES
The courts will be given the ability to imprison for up to five years and impose and unlimited fine. The charges can be made by either solemn or summary indictment - i.e., before a sheriff sitting alone or before a judge and jury.
THIS LEGISLATION WILL NOT, THEY SAY
Stop peaceful preaching or proselytising.
Restrict freedom of speech - including the right to criticise or comment on religion even in harsh terms.
Criminalise jokes or satire about religious belief.
Much of the explanation of the legislation and chairmanship of the Question and Answer Session was handled by Richard Foggo - a senior civil servant who is Secretary of the Joint Action Group and in charge of the drafting of the Bill. He and his colleagues used helpful Powerpoint slides to guide the debate and I have asked that I be given them to pass on to aid discussion on the topic.
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS FROM THE FLOOR
I myself managed to get in two questions.
“A POLITICAL DEFENCE” - I pointed out that certain people and organisations were attempting to evade repercussions for their support of sectarianism and terrorist organisations by dressing up their behaviour as “political” despite the activities and organisations they supported being obviously criminal, sectarian and terroristic.
As Richard Foggo had mentioned that the drafting of the legislation took into consideration the ‘mood music of public opinion’ in Scotland I asked if they had considered that some may wish to worm their way out of this by claiming that their actions were not “sectarian.” He gave this short shrift by pointing out that the Bill did not mention the word “sectarian” - it is tackling “offensive behaviour” which is hateful, inciting hatred and/or likely to incite public disorder in the mind of “a reasonable person.” That being the case the defence of political motivation would be of no use to a defendant.
THE INTERNET - My second point was that the powers as they stood were easy to enforce on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter - but that my experience of the internet over the last ten years was that the real incubators of hate were those sites which were normally closed to the public and which recruited only by payment or by recommendation - such sites could easily continue pumping out hate with little action against their owners unless legislation was changed or introduced. Anyone running a normal site should have nothing to fear. Didn’t get an answer to that one but some participants obviously thought it worth investigating.
AIDEN O’NEILL QC - representing several Christian organisations he ripped through the Bill labeling it the ‘worst drafted Bill I’ve ever seen.’ He pointed out that at least half a dozen fundamental rights of the citizen were breached by the terms of the Bill - surrounding free speech, etc - and that most of the behaviour it was supposed to address could easily be handled by the application of existing legislation.
DOCTOR DAVID MCARDLE - a senior lecturer in law at Stirling University made several interventions. Having researched heavily in the areas of football legislation - the latest being regarding football banning orders - he was of the opinion that every offence covered in the Bill was already an offence under existing legislation and that the five year and unlimited fine penalties were already available to the courts.
OTHER QUESTIONS AND FEEDBACK FROM NETWORKING - mainly on civil rights issues, repeated opinion from members of Christian organisations that it would be used to criminalise religious views, The Law Society issued a statement saying the Bill was being pushed through too quickly and the lack of scrutiny could result in legislation that may be open to successful challenge in the courts. It was also argued the regulation of the Internet is a matter reserved to the UK parliament and that the jailing of people overseas for abuse of the internet or of UK citizens alleged to have committed offenses overseas broke all the normal legal rules regarding extra-territoriality.
MY WORRY IS “MISSION CREEP”
My belief is that this legislation is directed mainly at Rangers fans, will be used in a partisan manner to criminalise all expressions of popular Protestant culture, will be used to criminalise opposition to the behaviour of certain religious organisations and that it will fail to tackle the problem of support for terrorist organisations.
REPUBLICAN ROSE PAYS A VISIT
The Community Safety Minister Roseanna Cunningham paid an express visit to the event, she was there for about ten minutes in total, delivered a speech in which she described herself as an ‘active member of a faith community’ and said the behaviour the Bill was intended to tackle as “nasty, nasty” and motivated by “anti-migration, anti-Catholicism, and lots of other things.”
HOW THE LEGISLATION WILL PROCEED
The Scottish parliament goes into recess on 30 June - so to have the legislation in place for the start of the new football season on 23rd July things will moved fast with between a week and a fortnight for objections, amendments, improvements to the Bill to be registered and discussed.
The Bill was brought forward by the Evidence Committee of the Justice Committee.
STAGE 1 - the Bill will be debated in Parliament. If the parliament is in broad agreement with the general principles it will move to Stage 2.
STAGE 2 - This is where detailed consideration will be given to the Bill. This may be done by the Justice Committee or by a committee appointed by the whole Parliament for the purpose. Submissions from interested parties can be used to shape the final version of the Bill that will go back to the Parliament. There can be no major changes made to the overall direction of the Bill in this stage.
STAGE 3 - The whole Parliament debates the Bill - it can amend or dismiss the Bill.
If the Bill is passed it is then presented for Royal Asset and comes into force the day after that is granted.
Bodies or individuals wishing to take make representations should do so very quickly.
The Bill and associated items can be found on the Scottish Parliament website - http://home.scotland.gov.uk/home