Criminal Justice (Hate Crime) Bill 2021

Criminal Justice (Hate Crime) Bill 2021

The Irish Department for Justice obtained government approval to publish the General Scheme of the Criminal Justice (Hate Crime) Bill 2021, which introduces the first hate crime-specific legislation in Ireland. Until this bill, the only legislation in Ireland dealing with hate-based offences is the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989, under which very few prosecutions occurred.

In a historic move, the new bill “will create new, aggravated forms of certain existing criminal offences, where those offences are motivated by prejudice against a protected characteristic”.

 

Key Features

New, specific hate-based aggravated offences for crimes that are motivated by prejudice against protected characteristics:

• Protected characteristics include race, colour, nationality, religion, ethnic or national origin (including recognition of Traveller ethnicity), sexual orientation, gender (including gender expression or identity) and disability.
• Crimes defined as aggravated offences include: assault, coercion, harassment, criminal damage, threat to kill or cause serious harm, and endangerment.

 

Aggravated offences that are motivated by prejudice will carry tougher sentences, in comparison to ordinary offences – if convicted, the offence would be clearly stated as a hate crime.

“For example, assault aggravated by prejudice will be a different and more serious offence to ordinary assault, harassment aggravated by prejudice will be a separate and more serious offence to ordinary harassment. The person will be charged with the new offence from the outset, will be prosecuted for that specific new offence, and if they are convicted, the record of their conviction will reflect that their offence was a hate crime.”

 

The Criminal Justice (Hate Crime) Bill 2021 is available online

 

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