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The end of blasphemy law
Abstract
Blasphemy law was once an integral part of English constitutional and criminal law, such was the law's close affiliation with the precepts of Christianity. The author marks the end of blasphemy law in England by adumbrating the reasons for its decline, and by providing a brief history of the crucial developments within that defunct but once important law, with reference to international as well as domestic case law. He also alludes to the sea change in religious priorities in England and the attempted resolution of possible inter-religious antipathies. Article by Dr Paul Kearns, Lecturer in Law at the School of Law, University of Manchester - published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London.
... However, in 1977, public decency campaigner Mary Whitehouse brought a private prosecution against the Gay News for publishing a poem, The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name, which depicted a centurion's love for Christ and suggested that Jesus could have been gay or bisexual 6 (this case is partially discussed in Lecture Ten). England's blasphemy law has now been effectively abolished by the law on incitement to religious hatred contained within the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 (Kearns, 2008;Tomes, 2010). Thus Muslims, who had never been protected under the Public Order Act 1936 because this legislation extended only to races, denying religious minorities parity of protection, are now protected. ...
The Citizen and the State examines the conflict between criminal justice and civil liberties from a critical criminology perspective. It argues that far from being a search for truth or justice, contemporary criminal justice represents the power of the state against the individual.
... 39 And yet, the Otto Preminger arguments have been consistently upheld including in the case of a complete ban on the film's distribution in Wingrove v. United Kingdom40 and in an incitement to religious hatred case in Anthony Norwood v. the United Kingdom. 41 It took a different view in Choudhury v. United Kingdom, 42 where the Court determined that Article 9 does not impose a positive obligation on the State to introduce legislation to criminalise blasphemy. ...
The 25 years' jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on the intersection between expression and religion reveals that three main ideas of religion have coexisted alongside each other, for many decades predating the current era. The jurisprudence also shows that the Court somehow accommodated (and justified) these different ideas through a focus on democratic pluralism (not religious pluralism), a conception of pluralism which makes religion (including in its diverse expressions) subservient to democratic principles.
The freedom of expression, of embracing any religion and beliefs as well, which are guarantied by many documents in human rights and constitutions in a lot of countries, including the Republic of Indonesia, finally must be considered as something which is not absolute in nature. The interpretation on the favor of such absoluteness will certainly carry the effects of the freedom and liberty of particultas person or group of people. In this contex, the freedon entails to be proportionally set out in order that such freedom will never violate or humiliate the freedom of others. The case ofAhmadiyyah is the suitable example for it This article seeks to discuss woh the blasphemy law wich applies in modern world indicates the inabsoluteness of the religious freedom.
Keywords; constitution, religion, ahmadiyyah
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