Select Committee on Religious Offences in England and Wales: Report

Select Committee on Religious Offences in England and Wales: Report PDF

Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Select Committee on Religious Offences in England and Wales

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 61

ISBN-13: 9780104002285

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In May 2002, the House of Lords appointed a Select Committee to consider whether existing common law offences, such as blasphemy and blasphemous libel, should be amended or abolished; and whether a new criminal offence of incitement to religious hatred should be created. This discussion followed the proposals tabled in the private member's bill 'Religious Offences Bill' (HLB 39, session 2001-02; ISBN 0108402150) which sought to introduce a new offence of incitement to religious hatred previously dropped from the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001. This wide-ranging report examines these issues, as well as current socio-religious trends in contemporary Britain and the development of a multi-faith society. It discusses options for common and criminal law reforms, as well as issues such as hate crime and aggravation. The Committee supports the rights under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion and concludes that there is a gap in the law as its stands. Although there is no consensus amongst the Committee's members with regards to additional legal protections, it is agreed that the civil and criminal law should give the same protection to people of all faiths, and of none.

Report

Report PDF

Author: Commonwealth Shipping Committee

Publisher:

Published: 1834

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

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Victims and Criminal Justice

Victims and Criminal Justice PDF

Author: Pamela Cox

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-08-15

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0192661663

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Victims and Criminal Justice is the first study of its kind to examine both the origins and impacts of key legal, procedural, and institutional changes introduced in England and Wales to encourage and govern prosecution. It sets out how crime victims' experiences of, and engagement with, the process of criminal justice changed dramatically between the late seventeenth and late twentieth centuries. Where victims once drove the English criminal justice system, bringing prosecutions as complainants and prosecutors, giving evidence as witnesses, putting up personal rewards for the recovery of lost goods or claim rewards for securing convictions, by the end of this period, victims had been firmly displaced as the state took virtually full responsibility for the process of prosecution. Combining qualitative analysis of a range of textual sources with quantitative analysis of large datasets featuring over 200,000 criminal prosecutions, the authors explore how victims were defined in law, what the law allowed and encouraged them to do, who they were in social and economic terms, how they participated in the criminal justice system, why many were unwilling or unable to engage in that system, and why some campaigned for specific rights. In exploring the shift in victim participation in criminal trials, Victims and Criminal Justice places current policy debates in a much-needed critical historical context.