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The Government has accepted the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch Terrorist Attack to amend the hate speech laws and create new hate crimes.
However, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said no changes would be made without consulting with the public and other political parties.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on the Christchurch Mosques on March 15, 2019 released its 44 recommendations on Tuesday, including the need to ensure that legislation related to hate speech and crime is appropriate for its purpose.
The commission found that current laws “do not appropriately capture the guilt of hate crimes, nor do they provide viable mechanisms to address hate speech.”
ROBERT KITCHEN / Things
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says that work is already underway to revise the hate speech legislation in an expedited review after the attacks.
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He said that hate speech and hate crimes were on “the same spectrum of harmful behavior as terrorism.”
He noted that it was valuable to try to reduce hate speech online and offline, not only to prevent the harm it causes, but also to limit the escalation of that speech to harm in the real world.
Currently, hate crimes are not a separate crime.
What is commonly called a hate crime in New Zealand is a crime that has been motivated by hostility, by one person or group attacking another on the basis of a common characteristic such as race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, age, etc. .
Hostility is considered an aggravating factor under the 2002 Sentencing Act.
Unlike other countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, New Zealand does not maintain a complete registry of hate crimes. For more than a decade, national and international agencies have been asking for one.
Tessa Burrows / Getty Images
Unlike other countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, New Zealand does not maintain a complete registry of hate crimes.
Shortly after the Human Rights Commission in 2009 recommended to the police to collect and make available data on hate crimes, the government of the day agreed. However, he said the recommendation was not a priority and action was never taken.
Meanwhile, online hate recipients have said they feel the police aren’t taking their concerns seriously.
The commission proposed the creation of new hate crimes in the Summary Crimes Act of 1981 and the Crimes Act of 1961 and hate crimes of assault, arson, and intentional harm that correspond to existing crimes in the Law of crimes.
He also proposed sweeping changes to current laws on hate speech. The changes would make legal language “sharpen” and religion added to the list of protected characteristics.
They would also repeal and replace the section of the Human Rights Act 1993 regarding incitement to racial discord with a new equivalent offense in the Crimes Act.
Ardern said that work is already underway to review the hate speech legislation (a review was accelerated in the wake of the attacks), but “we will consult with community groups and parties throughout Parliament.”
“These problems are old and before [March 15, 2019] and they affect many different groups, including LQBTQI and religious groups, ”he said.
Police Minister Poto Williams said in a statement that the agency was establishing a new program, Te Raranga, The Weave, to better respond to hate crimes and incidents.
“Te Raranga, The Weave will implement a victim-centered approach to hate crimes and work with partners to develop restorative justice options for victims, communities and those who cause this type of harm,” Williams said.
The program would also improve the identification, recording and management of incidents and hate crimes.
The commission recognized the need to balance public safety with freedom of expression in a democratic society: “The weight that democratic society justly places on freedom of expression leaves comparatively little scope for criminalizing what people say or write, although We consider that at least there is scope for prohibiting some harmful speech. “
Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said, following the commission’s findings, the timeline and approach for publishing the expedited hate speech review have yet to be defined.
