Can't say woof to a dog? A bill will be discussed tomorrow in the House of Lords on public speech, which includes the word "insulting". If this section (5) from the Public Order Act of 1986 is not amended by Parliament, all of us are in trouble, not because we go around insulting people, but because of the subjectivity of the terms of the law.
Here is a section of the article from The Telegraph. We are becoming a sick, silly people. Opps, sorry. I am being insulting. My possibly insulting highlights...
The late Lord Monson, a champion of personal liberties, agreed. Speaking in the House of Lords in the same year, he observed that “the word 'abusive’ can be judged objectively, but 'insulting’ is totally subjective. What one person finds offensive, the next person may be indifferent to… It did not matter very much at first, because I think that the public 20-odd years ago were less thin-skinned than they are now… People are positively encouraged to be touchy, both by the media – whether deliberately or not – and pressure groups.”
The comedian and a fellow campaigner for reform, Rowan Atkinson, recently summed up the difficulties posed by the inclusion of the term “insulting” in the Act. He warned that, under Section 5, criticism, unfavourable comparison or “merely stating an alternative point of view” can be interpreted as an insult and lead to arrest.
The law, in its current form, has been used to arrest gay activists, Christian preachers and a student who called a police horse “gay”. A critic of Scientology was summoned under Section 5. And a young man who said “woof” to a dog was actually convicted, although a court later cleared him. There must be something wrong with a law that can be used by police, prosecutors and the courts in such an excessively broad way.
