Homophobic Derby Fans banned

[severnside gull]

It was democratically decided that homophobic actions and speech made in public are a criminal offence when democratically elected representatives in Parliament passed into law The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill that contains a clause creating the offence of incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation.

owned

 

[cunning fergus]

Who ever suggested that all laws passed in a democracy benefit society

One of the benefits of a democratic society is that all laws can be challenged, on an individual basis through the judiciary and on a group basis through elections.

For democracy to work though then the laws of that democracy need to be followed whilst they are in force.

I am no lawyer, but which laws exist that do not have at least a theoretical disposition to be of benefit to wider society............no doubt many laws (whether be design or default) will end helping some members of society more than others, but surely the intention of all laws is to maintain order, justice, fairness blah blah blah?

Sure, these laws have gone through our law making system, that was not my point on democracy, recently the UK introduced the law on gay marriage, which was obviously a factor so prominent in the Tories minds on social justice that they forgot to mention it in their manifesto or even hold a single vote on it amongst their party membership. It is of course now law but the law was never a motive behind why any one single member of the electorate voted Tory (who had the largest share of the democratic vote) such are the practical realities of how laws are delivered by our democratic system and our democratically elected leaders.

Now the changes to the CJ&I Act have been made society is reaping the consequent benefits..............when it was introduced in 2010 it was more a case of evening up current legislation, as even under the racial offence category there had only been 20 cases bought to court since it was introduced.............a mere 30 years ago.

I understand that the application of laws in practice is a different question but there's the rub, now we have it no doubt it will be interpreted by the Police and lawyers, BHA games must be manna from Heaven.

 

[cunning fergus]

When parliament passed the relevant Acts. Although I think homophobia (like racism) is still legal - as long as you keep quiet about it.

Indeed, the title of this thread should be adjusted................for the next few years anyway....................no doubt it will come to pass in due course.

 

[Creaky]

I am no lawyer, but which laws exist that do not have at least a theoretical disposition to be of benefit to wider society............no doubt many laws (whether be design or default) will end helping some members of society more than others, but surely the intention of all laws is to maintain order, justice, fairness blah blah blah?

Sure, these laws have gone through our law making system, that was not my point on democracy, recently the UK introduced the law on gay marriage, which was obviously a factor so prominent in the Tories minds on social justice that they forgot to mention it in their manifesto or even hold a single vote on it amongst their party membership. It is of course now law but the law was never a motive behind why any one single member of the electorate voted Tory (who had the largest share of the democratic vote) such are the practical realities of how laws are delivered by our democratic system and our democratically elected leaders.

Now the changes to the CJ&I Act have been made society is reaping the consequent benefits..............when it was introduced in 2010 it was more a case of evening up current legislation, as even under the racial offence category there had only been 20 cases bought to court since it was introduced.............a mere 30 years ago.

I understand that the application of laws in practice is a different question but there's the rub, now we have it no doubt it will be interpreted by the Police and lawyers, BHA games must be manna from Heaven.

The debate over whether or not laws passed in a democracy are for the benefit of society as a whole or for that of an individual is a complex one. Do the abortion laws for example benefit society as a whole or are they designed to alleviate the situation that individuals in a society find themselves in.

Likewise with laws designed to discourage smoking - undoubtedly on an individual basis extending the life expectancy of those who do smoke as well as those they come into contact with is a "good thing" for those individuals but does it benefit society as a whole - it could be argued that increasing life expectancy adds an extra burden onto the majority.

Then we come to legislation outlawing racist, homophobic, ageist etc. behaviour. It could be argued that this type of legislation benefits just the targets of the behaviour in question - I would argue that such behaviour is in itself morally repugnant and laws which shows societies rejection of such acts benefits society as a whole.

 

[cunning fergus]

Couldn't agree more, the motives behind the creation of law is complex and why refrains about the laws we have to abide by have "democratic" legitimacy grate with me.

Nonetheless, when laws are introduced, our democratically elected representatives, in their paradigm at least, will always ague on balance that they will represent a benefit to wider society.........for example:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ity-recruits-labour-tells-police-8803468.html

This appears to be ipso facto racial discrimination, but I now understand from the article that its good racial discrimination. That's what Yvette will argue, but that's no help to those who will be discriminated against should this law get passed by our democratically elected representatives.

I don't have a beef about equality legislation, on the contrary, lets have equality, trouble is the motives of our politicians............they cannot to be trusted, regardless of whether they have been democratically elected.