The Bill provides for the prevention of hate crimes and hate speech, and for the prosecution of persons who commit these crimes.
The Bill gives the following definitions for ‘hate crime’ and ‘hate speech’:
- A hate crime is committed if a person commits any recognised offence, that is a common law or statutory offence (referred to as the “base crime or offence”), and the commission of that offence is motivated by unlawful bias, prejudice or intolerance.
- Hate speech is committed if a person intentionally communicates to another person in a manner that advocates hatred towards any other person or group of persons, or is threatening, abusive or insulting towards that person(s), and which demonstrates a clear intention to incite harm or stir up violence against such persons, based on unlawful bias, prejudice or intolerance.
