Justice and Constitutional Development Deputy Minister, John Jeffery, says although the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill is not the sole answer to combatting racism, it goes a long way to penalise perpetrators.<\/p>\n
He was speaking during a presentation on the bill at a meeting of the National Assembly’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis bill is not government\u2019s attempt to the answer to racism in South Africa. Racism is a complex problem. We are not really going to resolve racism until we resolve the racial nature of poverty and power in South Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did feel as government that it\u2019s important to have penalties for racism and other intolerances. But it\u2019s not meant to be the sole answer; it\u2019s just one of the aspects,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The bill aims to provide for the offence of hate crime and the offence of hate speech, and the prosecution of persons who commit those offences and also aims to provide for appropriate sentences that may be imposed on persons who commit hate crime and hate speech offences.<\/p>\n
Jeffery acknowledged that the bill has caused debate in the public sphere with some calling it a curtailment of freedom of speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a controversial bill and its controversial particularly because of the hate speech provisions. I think the issue there is that it is a policy choice\u2026should we have restrictions on speech or shouldn\u2019t we?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Constitution already specifically\u2026defines certain kinds of speech as not being part of freedom of expression. There is also the limitation clause which allows one to go further,\u201d Jeffery said.<\/p>\n
The Deputy Minister said public comments on the Bill had raised that there are already laws in place to deal with such matters and that these are \u201csufficient\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019ve got currently is PEPUDA [Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act] but PEPUDA is a civil remedy. It is dependent on the person aggrieved to go to the Equality Court to become a plaintiff and take the matter up themselves. Usually, the responsibility by the state in criminalising matters is that the state then takes responsibility for following up the crime that has been allegedly committed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already have restrictions on speech as a crime which is crimen injuria. But crimen injuria is a common law crime.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what [this bill] is trying to do\u2026it\u2019s not trying to replace crimen injuria but it\u2019s trying to set out a statutory crime of hate speech so that there\u2019s greater clarity. There\u2019s some confusion with crimen injuria\u2026 [on what would make] you guilty of crimen injuria. So the idea here was to have a new crime of hate speech,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Source: South African Government News Agency<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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