JUSTICE MINISTER SIMON Harris has defended the Government’s hate speech legislation, saying it passed through the Dáil with cross party support.
The Justice Minister said, following criticism from Donald Trump Jr and Elon Musk, that he did not take his political philosophy from either of the men and claimed that concerns had been overstated.
“The reality here is just people trying to overstate things for whatever reason, that’s fine. We live in a democracy that people have their debate,” Harris said.
“This legislation went to Dáil Éireann, there is not much that the opposition and the government agree on. Overwhelmingly, the Dáil passed this legislation, because it’s not about policing thought. It’s not about stopping freedom of expression.”
People Before Profit voted against the bill, while Sinn Féin and Labour voted for amendments to remove Section 10 of the Bill.
However, both Sinn Féin and Labour voted in favour of the overall bill.
The legislation aims to update the laws on hate speech in Ireland by strengthening the legal recognition of hatred in the criminal justice system.
The bill seeks to create new, aggravated forms of a number of existing criminal offences, in cases where those offences are proven to be motivated by prejudice against ten “protected characteristics”.
These characteristics are: race; colour; nationality; religion (including the absence of religion); national or ethnic origin; descent; gender; sex characteristics; sexual orientation; and disability.
However, controversy has surrounded Section 10 of the bill, which relates to a proposed offence of preparing or being in possession of material that is deemed likely to incite violence or hatred.
Although possession of such material will be allowed for strictly personal use, a subsection of this part of the bill states that those who are found in possession of hateful material will “be presumed, until the contrary is proved” to be in breach of the law.
An excerpt of this section was shared widely online last week, and attracted criticism from Elon Musk, who described it as “massive attack against freedom of speech” and Donald Trump Jr, who described the legislation as “one of the most radical hate speech bills” in the world.
A vote, proposed by People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy, to remove this section of the bill was defeated before the legislation passed final stage in the Dáil last week.
The bill is now currently passing through the Seanad after it received Dáil approval.
Harris said that the proposed laws were about “keeping people safe and making sure that people can go about their lives and not be discriminated against”.
He added that people had a right to say offensive things, but that they did not have a right to incite hatred against others.
“It’s not your right, absolutely not your right, to say something that incites hatred or danger towards another person.
“Whenever you see Donald Trump Jr, the Trump family and Elon Musk oppose your legislation and then you see Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Greens, Sinn Féin, Labour coming together to vote in favour of something? You know, there’s no conspiracy here.”
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), who have broadly welcomed the bill and the protections it offers vulnerable groups, also expressed concerns about Section 10 of the proposed legislation.
“Normally in the criminal case, the burden is on the prosecutor to prove the offence. That’s at the heart of what it is to be presumed innocent,” Doireann Ansbro, ICCL’s Head of Legal and Policy told The Journal.
“What we’re seeing here, we would agree, is that there is a reversal of the burden of proof. We would totally disagree with that. We think it should be on the prosecutor to prove any every element of a crime. We don’t agree with any kind of reversing of the burden of proof.”
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