Hate crimes to include those 'motivated by misogyny'

Minister for Justice Helen McEntee says new Bill will introduce specific aggravated offences with enhanced penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against certain characteristics, including gender.

The Minister for Justice has laid out the timeframe for legislative measures aimed at cracking down on sexual and domestic violence.

Helen McEntee said the legislative timetable includes moves to better protect victims in the criminal justice system and says certain crimes can be prosecuted as hate crimes where they are motivated by misogyny.

Safe Ireland welcomed the response by the Minister, saying that much of what she is now hoping to bring before the Oireachtas is based on submissions made in the Draft National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence.

Miriam Kivlehan of Safe Ireland said one aspect of the Minister's response that was "new to us" was the element of misogyny being incorporated into hate crime legislation, with the new Hate Crime Bill to be published in the summer.

Minister McEntee said the Bill will introduce new, specific aggravated offences with enhanced penalties for crimes motivated by prejudice against certain characteristics, including gender.

"This will mean that certain types of crimes can be prosecuted as hate crimes where they are motivated by misogyny," she said.

For other crimes, where there isn’t a dedicated hate-aggravated offence, the new legislation will require the court to take misogyny into account where there is evidence that this was the motivation, to reflect that fact in the sentence, and to reflect the fact that the crime was aggravated by this form of prejudice in the formal record.

Ms Kivlehan welcomed this while accepting that, if implemented, proving misogyny as a factor in cases would be a matter for the courts.

The Minister said that before Easter she will publish a Bill that will include new criminal offences for stalking and for non-fatal strangulation, explicitly referencing stalking as a criminal offence, as well as making it clear that stalking includes watching or following a victim, even where they are not aware of being watched or followed, and that impersonating the victim, and then communicating with a third party, is illegal. The Bill will also cover all forms of modern communications.

According to the Minister: "Furthermore, while non-fatal strangulation is already an offence prosecutable under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997, I believe that creating a new offence should encourage victims to come forward and report what has happened to them. It has been shown that this crime can be an indication of future, lethal violence and is a risk factor for homicides against women in the home."

New sexual offences bill

She said before the end of September she will publish a new Sexual Offences Bill which will extend victim anonymity to further categories of victims, repeal provisions for sentences to be delivered in public and ensure legal representation for victims.

Further proposed measures include enacting the Sex Offenders Bill and signing an order to bring into operation the Criminal Procedure Act 2021, which provides for the use of preliminary trial hearings "which will significantly improve the trial process for victims of sexual offences, including by reducing delay and disruption that might re-traumatise victims".

Miriam Kivlehan, Programme and Communication Manager with Safe Ireland, said: "We would be fully supportive of everything she said there", adding that the Minister appeared "fully committed" to addressing issues around gender and domestic violence.