Ireland’s hate offences bill represents an unprecedented assault on free speech and rule of law
by David Thunder, MercatorNet:
And it breezed through. What does that say about Ireland’s legislators?
Dáil Eireann, the lower house of the Irish Parliament, has just passed the most radical hate speech law in the history of the Irish State, a law so radical that it could potentially criminalise material in your “possession” that you have never made public, if that material is deemed by a judge to be liable to incite hatred and you cannot prove it was exclusively for personal use.
The likely effect of this law, if it is passed in its current form in the Seanad (Senate), will be to create a chilling effect around any speech that could be construed as critical with respect to “protected categories” such as sexual orientation, “sex characteristics” (which I can only assume refers to someone identifying as a man or woman), gender, religion, and so on. It will also generate an atmosphere of insecurity for many citizens, due to the hopelessly vague and subjective manner in which hate speech offences are defined.
Let’s begin by working through a few key elements of the version of the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 that was passed a few days ago in the Dáil:
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
