By: Toby Gould, Editor
To say we have complete free speech in the UK is
inaccurate. While we do have relatively
free media, and while we are open to criticise the government, organisations
and individuals, there are laws in place which, for better or worse, which
place limits on what you can and cannot say.
There is no one, simple law that covers free speech in the UK. Rather, it is a complicated mix of modern and
historic, and, domestic and international laws.
The European
Convention on Human Rights, 1998, is incorporated into our law under the Human
Rights Act and guarantees freedom of expression under Article 10[TG1] . It states that “everyone has a right to freedom of
expression”. However, it then goes
on to say “these freedoms… may be subject
to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties… as are necessary in
a democratic society”. As you can
tell from reading this, free speech guaranteed under the European Convention is
not absolute.
The United Kingdom has further restrictions of freedom of
expression. For example, it is against
the law to incite racial hatred, religious hatred or to ‘breach the
peace’. Moreover, it is against the law
to use ‘threatening or abusive’ words which re intended to cause ‘harassment or
distress’.
This is in stark contrast to the United States, who’s
constitution guarantees citizens an (almost) absolute right to free
speech. The 1st Amendment
states “Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the establishment of free
speech”. This means that in the USA you
can go out to the streets and say things which in the UK would be illegal. For example, a person in the United States
can shout obscene racist language to people in the streets – and this would be
permitted under their rights laid out in the constitution. If somebody were to do the same in the UK,
they could face arrest for ‘inciting racial hatred’ or ‘breaching the
peace’.
There is an ongoing debate over whether free speech should
be absolute, somewhat censored and monitored, or fully censored. In today’s world we see the extremes of
allowing free speech (in the USA) but also the extremes of state censorship (in
North Korea, for example). The UK, like
most Western Liberal Democracies is somewhere in the middle. However, it is difficult to understand where
we lie on a free speech scale. As mentioned earlier, there is no clear law
setting out your rights to free speech.
Free Speech in the UK: An Overview
Reviewed by Student Voices
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