Back in June 2001, Donald Gorrie MSP lodged a proposal for a Bill in the Scottish Parliament to make sectarian behaviour an aggravation of a criminal offence. The intention of this would be to attract more punitive sentences for offences which were committed with a sectarian motivation. He also proposed the creation of a code of conduct on tackling sectarian behaviour.
Mr Gorrie's consultation on his proposed Bill drew almost 100 responses, most of which expressed support for his objectives.
During a debate in the Scottish Parliament on 15 November 2001 about the UK Parliament's Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Bill, Iain Gray MSP (the then Deputy Justice Minister) announced that the then Executive would convene a cross-party working group to consider whether there was a need for any new legislation on this issue in Scotland.
The remit of the Working Group was as follows:
- Consider the need for legislation to combat religious hatred (in particular the creation of a new category of statutory aggravations and the creation of a new offence of incitement to religious hatred) and if appropriate develop effective and workable proposals for legislation to increase the protection to religious groups in Scotland.
- Consider whether non-legislative action could be taken as an alternative.
Under the rules of the Scottish Parliament, the setting up of a Working Group on Religious Hatred had the effect of suspending work on drafting the Member Bill.
The cross party Working Group produced a report containing a number of recommendations for action.
As a result of the recommendations in the Working Group report, provisions which ended up being section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 were included in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill. This section makes provision for offences aggravated by religious prejudice, requiring courts to take such aggravations into account when determining sentence and also to state the extent of and reasons for any consequent difference in sentence.