Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation – like dignity and honour. In the English-speaking world, the law of defamation traditionally distinguishes between libel and slander. It is treated as a civil wrong, as a criminal offence, or both.
Blasphemous libel was originally an offence under the common law of England. Today, it is an offence under the common law of Northern Ireland, but has been abolished in England and Wales, and repealed in Canada and New Zealand. It is a form of criminal libel that consists of the publication of material which exposes the Christian religion to scurrility, vilification, ridicule, and contempt, with material that must have the tendency to shock and outrage the feelings of Christians.
Seditious libel is a criminal offence under common law of printing written material with seditious purpose – that is, the purpose of bringing contempt upon a political authority. It remains an offence in Canada but has been abolished in England and Wales.
The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which creates an offence in England and Wales of inciting hatred against a person on the grounds of their religion. The Act was the Labour Government's third attempt to bring in this offence: provisions were originally included as part of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill in 2001, but were dropped after objections from the House of Lords. The measure was again brought forward as part of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill in 2004-5, but was again dropped in order to get the body of that Bill passed before the 2005 general election.
Volksverhetzung, in English "incitement to hatred", "incitement of popular hatred", "incitement of the masses", or "instigation of the people", is a concept in German criminal law that refers to incitement to hatred against segments of the population and refers to calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them, including assaults against the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning, or defaming segments of the population.
Incitement to ethnic or racial hatred is a crime under the laws of several countries.
Australian sedition law was an area of the criminal law of Australia relating to the crime of sedition.
Bill C-10: Income Tax Amendments Act, 2006 was a bill introduced in the Canadian Parliament in 2007 by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It was numbered Bill C-10 of the second session of the 39th Parliament of Canada.
Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act was a provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act dealing with hate messages. The provision prohibited online communications which were "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt" on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination. Complaints under this section were brought to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and if the Commission found sufficient evidence, the case would be heard by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Section 13 was repealed by the Parliament of Canada effective June 2014.
Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment. "Speech" is not limited to public speaking and is generally taken to include other forms of expression. The right is preserved in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is granted formal recognition by the laws of most nations. Nonetheless, the degree to which the right is upheld in practice varies greatly from one nation to another. In many nations, particularly those with authoritarian forms of government, overt government censorship is enforced. Censorship has also been claimed to occur in other forms and there are different approaches to issues such as hate speech, obscenity, and defamation laws.
An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Canada Evidence Act is an act of the Parliament of Canada passed in 2005. The Act amended several statutes related to the consent of sexual acts, sexual offences, and child abuse.
Hate speech laws in Canada include provisions in the federal Criminal Code, as well as statutory provisions relating to hate publications in three provinces and one territory.
The hate speech laws in Australia give redress to someone who is the victim of discrimination, vilification or injury on grounds that differ from one jurisdiction to another. All Australian jurisdictions give redress when a person is victimised on account of skin colour, ethnicity, national origin or race. Some jurisdictions also give redress when a person is victimised on account of religion, disability, gender identity, HIV/AIDS status or sexual orientation.
An Act to amend the Criminal Code (trafficking in persons) (French: Loi modifiant le Code criminel (traite des personnes), commonly known as Bill C-310) is a statute passed by the Canadian Parliament in 2012. It amended the Criminal Code to enable the Government of Canada to prosecute Canadians for trafficking in persons while outside of Canada.
An Act to amend the Criminal Code may refer to:
An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum sentence for offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of eighteen years) (French: Loi modifiant le Code criminel (peine minimale pour les infractions de traite de personnes âgées de moins de dixhuit ans)) was a private member's bill that was enacted on June 29, 2010, by the 40th Canadian Parliament. Until that time, no other private member's bill had passed since the 2008 Canadian federal election. The bill that led to the Act, Bill C-268, was sponsored by Joy Smith, Member of Parliament for Kildonan—St. Paul. The act established a mandatory sentencing of five years' imprisonment for those charged with the trafficking of children within Canada.
The 42nd Canadian Parliament was in session from December 3, 2015, to September 11, 2019, with the membership of its lower chamber, the House of Commons of Canada, having been determined by the results of the 2015 federal election held on October 19, 2015, and thirty new appointees to its Upper House, the Senate of Canada. Parliament officially resumed on December 3, 2015, with the election of a new Speaker, Geoff Regan, followed by a Speech from the Throne the following day. The Speaker of the Senate of Canada was George Furey, who was appointed Speaker of the Canadian Senate on the advice of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to replace Leo Housakos, on December 3, 2015. On September 11, 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau advised Governor General Julie Payette to dissolve Parliament and issue the writ of election, leading to a 5-week election campaign period for the 2019 federal election. Significant legislation adopted during the 42nd Parliament included the Cannabis Act, the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Implementation Act, the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act, the Impact Assessment Act and Canadian Energy Regulator Act, as well as the legalizing of medical assistance in dying and adding gender identity and expression to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act.
An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code is a law passed in 2017 by the Parliament of Canada. It was introduced as Bill C-16 of the first session of the 42nd Parliament. The law adds gender expression and gender identity as protected grounds to the Canadian Human Rights Act, and also to the Criminal Code provisions dealing with hate propaganda, incitement to genocide, and aggravating factors in sentencing.
An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts is a statute passed by the Parliament of Canada. It formerly was known as Bill C-75. Some provisions of the Act came into force on 19 September 2019.
Hate speech is public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. Hate speech is "usually thought to include communications of animosity or disparagement of an individual or a group on account of a group characteristic such as race, colour, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or sexual orientation".
