united-kingdom england-and-wales freedom-of-speech human-rights religious-law
Consistency and coherence across statutes - Are the allowances of s29J completely negated by the offence of religiously aggravated harassment?
<p>Crime and disorder act 1988 s32 introduces religiously aggravated harassment which effectively extends S2 and S4 of protection from harassment act.</p>
<p>This seems to completely nullify the protections of the behaviours allowed by s29J of racial and religious hatred act 2006.</p>
<p>To a lesser extent, <strong>section 5, public order act seems to also have this effect of circumventing those behaviours which 29J seemed to have sought so thoughtfully to protect.</strong></p>
<p>Obviously (as yet) it still cannot override the free expression protections of the constitutional human rights act.</p>
<p>But to what extent is there otherwise expected to be a level of consistence or coherence across different statutes of the statute book, and what consequences do the contradiction of effect between the different laws have upon each other and their respective interpretation and application?</p>

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<p>Crime and disorder act 1988 s32 introduces religiously aggravated harassment which effectively extends S2 and S4 of protection from harassment act.</p>
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<p>This seems to completely nullify the protections of the behaviours allowed by s29J of racial and religious hatred act 2006.</p>
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<p>I don't understand how you arrive at that conclusion.</p>
<p>Harassment is unwanted behaviour repeatedly <em>targeting</em> a particular individual or connected group of individuals (e.g. a family or members of a particular club or place of worship). &quot;Religiously aggravated&quot; means it has a religious component and adds to the sentence.</p>
<p>For example, standing outside a place of worship every day, shouting at the coming and going individual(s) &quot;you Christian/Jewish/Muslim scum.&quot;</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/stalking-and-harassment" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/stalking-and-harassment</a></p>
<p>Commenting or joking about Christianity/Judaism/Islam generally is entirely different behaviour and has the 29J defence.</p>
