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Prerequisites for the effective fight against hate crimes
Bárd, Petra
Bárd, Petra
Title / Series / Name
Hungarian Journal of Legal Studies
Publication Volume
61
Publication Issue
3
Pages
Author
Editors
Keywords
SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Files
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Bard-Petra_2020.pdf
Adobe PDF, 621.32 KB
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/28780
Abstract
Hate crimes poison societies by threatening individual rights, human dignity and equality. They effect private lives, or even victims’ life and limb. Due to their ripple effect, they terrify whole communities, reinforce tensions between social groups, ultimately jeopardising peaceful coexistence. No society is immune from the signs of hatred, but whether they get tamed or whether prejudices are deepened, depends on the social measures that are applied vis-à-vis the phenomenon. The state’s reaction creates norms and will informs society about the current acceptable standards. European expectations help forming these. Standards developed by the European Court of Human Rights include the obligations to ensure that hate against social groups as a motivation is considered an aggravating circumstance or leads to penalty enhancement. States must also ensure that national investigation authorities show special vigilance to explore and unmask the bias motives behind hate crimes. Such European expectations still leave a wide room of manoeuvre to respond to hate crimes efficiently and dissuasively. But irrespectively of the national codification method, for legal provisions to reach the desired outcome, certain social preconditions must be met. For hate crime laws or provisions to work, states must reach a certain level of maturity from the viewpoint of democracy, fundamental rights in general and the rule of law, where guaranteeing judicial independence is an absolute minimum.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2020-09
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1556/2052.2020.00340