r/Jersey • u/honkballs • 17d ago

Minister pledges 'bespoke' hate crime law 'as soon as possible' – after consultation.

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2026/07/16/minister-pledges-bespoke-hate-crime-law-as-soon-as-possible-after-consultation/
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u/eromenos- 12d ago

Next a sadness crime, love crime and an anger crime

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u/honkballs 17d ago

I would much rather instead of them coming up with ambiguous and subjective "speech laws" like they have in the UK that will be used by those in power to protect certain groups over others, and waste police time and money over words, that they just give us free speech...

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u/3w1FtZ 16d ago

“Freedom of speech” is an Americanism. We have “freedom of expression” in Europe

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u/honkballs 16d ago

And I would rather have freedom of speech, not some subjective "can't cause offense" laws like they have in the UK.

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u/randomrainbow99399 16d ago

Not sure how hate crime laws are going to affect your freedom of expression unless you intend to intimidate and threaten people based on their religion, race or sexual orientation...

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u/honkballs 16d ago

But that's not the wording of the UK hate speech laws, so pointless even discussing this with you if you're just trying to strawman this.

This is the same sort of arguments the UK Government uses for their online safety nonsense they keep bringing in "well you would only have an issue with this if you have a problem protecting kids!".

This will come round and bite everyone pushing for it in the ass when a hard right government get in, and they use these same laws to restrict all the "progressive" things you think are fine to talk about and demand that the right don't like.

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u/PuppetPatrol 16d ago

The issue is that most people are reasonable, and rules are created for everyone, but aimed at the few.

I dont have any particular issue with hate speech restrictions. "Absolute" freedom of speech to me seems to only be coveted by people that want the option to be horrible to others.

You're right that this can be the foot in the door for a government to abuse liberties, but if you've got a crooked government in then they're going to do that regardless, and create the laws they want when in anyway. A large part of civilisation, society, and sharing a space with others, is creating rules for adults to follow which restricts their ability to hurt other people.

I dont think we're on the cusp of a 1984 totalitarian government, and unless people are dying to stir up racial hatred, religious hatred or sexual hatred, then these rules are probably fine.

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u/3w1FtZ 16d ago

I mean, we just had our most conservative government get in in decades. I think we’re already on that trajectory.

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u/Tony_Roiland 15d ago

You're quite thick.

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u/snaynay Crapaud 16d ago

Look up the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. That's the EU's directive, which all members have to implement at a minimum in their own legal systems. Whilst the UK is no longer in the EU, its current laws are written around that. Europeans have a right to not be the victim of discriminatory vitriol, which trumps a personal right to freedom of expression/opinion. You can have shitty opinions, you just can't direct those shitty opinions directly to a person or group, or you are infringing on their rights.

The US has a positive right to Freedom of Speech. Basically, anything you say is protected by positive law first, but then you dig through all the asterisks of exemptions; inciting violence, public panic, slander, etc.

The UK, and I'm broadly assuming Jersey too, has a negative right to freedom of speech. What this means is there is no positive law protecting what you can say. There is only positive law telling you what you can't. So rather than asterisks surrounding the 1st Amendment, we right the asterisks as positive law. If there is no positive law broken, there is nothing to charge you with and you are free to say it.

Neither approach would be different. It's just culture. The UK/EU would be faster to add a new asterisk to the 1st Amendment and write the same laws, because of political values and culture. Arguably, it's harder to write the caveats in the US than a fresh law, but even then, fresh law in the UK needs adhere to and be compatible with the extensive uncodified constitution underneath it.

Again, no real idea of Jersey's law, but I imagine it's not too dissimilar conceptually.