Hate Crime Reform and Party Positions

In the wake of the recent arson attack at the Belfast Multi-Cultural Association building in South Belfast, which is currently being treated as a deliberate hate crime, questions are being asked about the prevalence of hate motivated incidents and what type of response the NI executive could take on this issue. As elaborated in the Review of Hate Crime Legislation from November 2020, the rise of hate crimes in relation to the LGBT+ or BAME communities illustrates the scale of the issue and the lack of suitable mechanism within NI criminal law.

Context

The current approach to hate crime within NI has received much criticism and stands in contrast to the system in Scotland, England or Wales. Notably, the report presented by Minister of Justice Naomi Long concluded that large scale reform was necessary to tackle the persistent issue of hate crime. The full report can found at: https://www.justice-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/justice/hate-crime-review.pdf.

The last significant proposal to enhance protections against hate crime was a Bill of Rights that was never implemented, despite being unique to NI and being put forward by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. There has been concern for some time now that the current laws are inadequate and lack key definitions and omit certain vulnerable groups from protection. 

From PSNI and NISRA, we can see specifically that there was a record levels of hate crimes committed on the basis of homophobia and transphobia in 2019/20, with the most recent hate crime statistics report saying: “Homophobic incidents and crimes saw the largest increases across all hate motivation strands with 79 more incidents and 63 more crimes”. These statistics are especially worrying given the fact that reported hate crimes generally saw a decline throughout 2020 which may have been associated with the impact of Pandemic lockdowns. (https://www.psni.police.uk/globalassets/inside-the-psni/our-statistics/hate-motivation-statistics/2020-21/q2/hate-motivation-bulletin-sep-20.pdf )

As leader of the Alliance party and the current Minister of Justice, Naomi Long has made the issue of hate crime legislative reform a priority (especially when looking at legal definitions). This approach has been largely guided by the aforementioned report and would seek to adapt the Scottish aggravated offence model with its impact summarised : “Statutory aggravations should be added to all existing offences in Northern Ireland following the model adopted in Scotland and become the core method of prosecuting hate crimes in Northern Ireland. This would mean that any criminal offence could be charged in its aggravated form.” (pg 132 Review of Hate Crime Legislation). 

One recommendation which could prove quite controversial would be the inclusion of gender and gender identity within the framework of hate crime legislation. The implications of including gender within a legal hate crime protected group resulted in some pushback during the public consultation phase of the report, particularly among respondents concerned with issues of “freedom of speech and religious expression” (pg.15). As stated in the report, gender is not currently a protected characteristic within the hate crime frameworks of England, Scotland, or Wales and as such may prove more challenging to implement. The main crux of the issue with the inclusion of gender as a protected characteristic is scope and definition, as it could apply to issues of misogyny or transphobia. Such comprehensive reform may not have the political support among the parties at Stormont or the wider electorate, as highlighted in the report: “Organisations were split in their views, with 55% ‘for’ and 45% ‘against’ the inclusion of gender and gender identity. In contrast, 92% of individuals were opposed to the inclusion of gender and gender identity” (pg.16).

While much of the discourse surrounding the reform of hate crime legislation focuses on the controversy of cultural attitudes towards gender identity and various other forms of discrimination such as race, disability and other characteristics shared in most societies, the report also raises specific questions on the grounds of sectarianism. Despite its ubiquity and common use as a term, sectarianism doesn’t have a specific criminal legal definition within Northern Ireland; this presents a significant challenge as the process to arrive at one agreed definition may result in legislative deadlock.

Parties in favour of reform

In regards to reform, the policy stance of Sinn Féin align rather closely with that of Alliance and its leader, Naomi Long. This is no surprise as Sinn Féin have made issues of equality and identity paramount to their election platform within the last 5 to 10 years. As a result, Sinn Féin also supported the conclusions of the report and the implementation of the recommendations into law. The same can be said for both the SDLP and People Before Profit, as they share a similar view that current legislation wholly is inadequate to deal with the scale of the issue.

Parties sceptical of reform

The stance of the Ulster Unionist Party has not been made entirely clear on the issue of hate crime reform and elected representatives of the party have passed comment on similar proposals. Perhaps a microcosm of this can be seen in the example of UUP Councillor Carl McClean in Ards North Down Council, whereby the proposal to include misogyny and transmisogyny within a hate crime framework was treated with suspicion due to the fear that it could limit freedom of speech. Cllr. McClean then criticised the Scottish system: “Scotland is about to go down this very route and effectively ban comedy and theatre performances. I think we should be very careful what we do here.” (https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/misogyny-trans-misogyny-crime-would-18846296)

While all of the major parties will agree that there is an issue of hate crime within Northern Ireland, there remains a hesitance especially within the Unionist parties towards sweeping reform for the fear of government overreach, which is somewhat indicative of conservatism more generally in the British or Irish context. 

One notable case where the colliding principles of religious belief and anti-discrimination laws have already clashed was the Ashers “support gay marriage” cake controversy. It began in 2014 and was not resolved until the 2018 UK supreme court appeal decision in favour of the Ashers, overturning the original verdict delivered by the county court and also the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal. The Ashers case highlighted the fault line of equality legislation and religious belief present in Northern Ireland.

As the primary party of Christian conservatism within Northern Ireland, the DUP have clashed frequently with pressure groups and the other parties within the executive on the issue of equality legislation. The reaction of the DUP to the perceived overreach of NI equality legislation was the proposed Freedom of Conscience Amendment Bill which would have exempted business owners from legal ramifications for denying service to a customer on the basis of religious belief. While the Conscience bill was defeated in a petition of concern launched by Sinn Féin, the Green Party and the now defunct NI21, the debate remains highly divisive and politically contested.

The DUP has yet to officially comment on the hate crime report or its recommendations as the pandemic has taken up nearly all political and legislative attention. However, from examining their policy positions in the past, it’s quite probable that the issue of gender would prove just as divisive as the issue of gay marriage or abortion. In a scenario mirroring the previous example of UUP Cllr. McClean, DUP Cllr. Givan (Full name) criticised a proposal that would recognise misogyny as a hate crime in the Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council stating the proposal amounted to a: “gagging order on the comments that so many of us often make”.

Certainly, the DUP has held the position for some time that equality legislation has come at the expense of religious belief. The Freedom of Conscience bill proposed by MLA Paul Givan was widely criticised by such groups as Amnesty International and the Rainbow Coalition, however it gained the support of the Catholic Church by way of the Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor.

Conclusion

The Review of Hate Crime Legislation report 2020 illustrates many key issue ready for legislative reform and the public consultation involved has given us a strong basis by which reform can be made, however it also highlights the difficulty inherent within reform as it cuts to the heart of many of the most divisive political and cultural debates within NI. The review is an important first step in tackling an all too common reality for a vast number of people within NI and with 88% of organisations in the consultation agreeing that more needed to be done on the issue there is some reason to be optimistic (pg. 31). Pg 31 of? The review of hate crime report?