BY Ian Dunn | April 26 | 
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Unhelpful anti-sectarian bill faces an early review
The Scottish Government’s flagship anti-sectarian legislation has been condemned by a Church spokesman as ‘not helpful’ in combatting bigotry and the Scottish Parliament has asked the Lord Advocate to investigate its effectiveness.
The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 was assessed by Holyrood’s Justice Committee on Tuesday, ahead of its scheduled 2015 review, amid concerns about ‘overzealous’ police enforcement and after one sheriff recently described the legislation as ‘mince.’
Many of those criticisms were articulated by Peter Kearney, director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, who said ‘this new legislation seems to blur and confuse the whole issue’ of sectarianism in Scotland.
“The Catholic Church does have a sympathetic understanding for those football supporters who feel targeted by the Offensive Behaviour at Football legislation,” he told the SCO. “It is fair to suggest that the Offensive Behaviour at Football law has not been helpful in furthering the targeting of religious hate crime, and has criminalised otherwise law-abiding football supporters.”
Mr Kearney also said that statistics revealed under the 2003 Religious Aggravated Crime law had demonstrated clearly that ‘Scotland does not have a problem with sectarianism but anti-Catholicism.’
Many of these issues were raised in a testy meeting of the Scottish Parliament Justice Committee on Tuesday.
Graeme Pearson, Labour MSP for the South of Scotland and a former assistant chief constable, said he was lobbying for an urgent review of the act.
The Justice Committee agrred to write to Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland for his view on how the act has been implemented in court. The committee will also write to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill asking if an urgent review of the act is now required.
—This story ran in full in the April 26 print edition of the SCO
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