Baroness Helena Kennedy to head new Scottish misogyny harassment group

A leading QC has been appointed by Scotland’s justice secretary to lead a working group on the possibility of creating a new offence of misogynistic harassment in Scots law in a bid to protect women from hate crimes.

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC.

Humza Yousaf made the announcement at today’s justice committee. He said Baroness Helena Kennedy would scope out the potential new law, but also investigate whether sex should be added to the Hate Crime Bill being piloted through Holyrood.

The Glasgow-born QC, who was appointed to the House of Lords by Tony Blair, and also authored ‘Eve Was Framed’, a criticism of the legal system’s treatment of women, will now set the remit for the group and invite members.

Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has announced further changes to his Hate Crime Bill

The working group had been requested by some Scottish women’s organisations, including Engender and Scottish Women’s Aid, as they do not believe adding sex – one of the protected characteristics in equality law – to the new Hate Crime Bill will protect women.

However, other groups, including For Women Scotland, believe women should also be covered by the new law, alongside race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity, and raised concerns the group could delay protections for women.

Mr Yousaf said: "The working group will be chaired by Baroness Helena Kennedy. She has extensive experience and knowledge in relation to women and will provide a strong perspective on this area.

“I’ve had an initial discussion with Baroness Kennedy and she is hugely enthusiastic and I’ll be discussing further with her the remit and membership of the group, but I’m delighted to have someone of her stature and integrity to undertake this work.”

Baroness Kennedy later said she was “delighted” to be appointed as chair. She said: “It is important that we address misogyny and the hate crime specifically directed at women. Scotland led the way on creating serious responses to domestic violence with its zero tolerance position and this could be another area for pioneering reform.”

Welcoming the appointment and describing it as a “coup" for the government given Baroness Kennedy’s “track record”, at the committee SNP MSP Annabelle Ewing also pointed to the recommendation of Lord Bracadale from his review of current hate crime laws, that sex be included in the new Bill and asked Mr Yousaf to explain why it was not.

He said: “I can certainly understand the concerns of a number of stakeholders about the omission of a statutory aggravator in relation to sex. But there are those who believe there are risks [such as Engender and Scottish Women's Aid] that it could be misused by domestic abuse perpetrators and the evidential basis on it is weak.

"Ultimately having listened to those stakeholders, the largest, most established stakeholders when it comes to women's rights in Scotland, they were pretty unanimous in their view that it could potentially do more harm than good.

"I could have just removed it from the Bill and not created an order making power, but I was keen that this issue be revisited in greater detail, and undoubtedly this will be part of the work the misogynistic harassment working group will do, and at a future date that aggravator can be added to the Bill.”

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