Kicking racism out

England football captain John Terry has been charged in accordance with s 28 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, contrary to s 31(1)(c) of the 1998 Act, over alleged racist comments said to have been made during a Premiership football match in October.

As the case has not been heard I will say nothing about its facts. Instead I will offer some observations on two related general issues prompted by the incident. The first concerns another aspect of s 28 of the 1998 Act, not raised in Terry’s case. The second concerns the general interplay between sport and the law, and the substitution of self-regulation for the criminal law. 

It might be suggested that abuse is abuse; and made none the better if it happens not to be directed at someone’s race. But human history is full of examples of the most appalling examples of abuse specifically based around race. There is therefore some justification in the context of the public order offence of harassment for special condemnation of abuse directed at someone’s race.

The more substantive controversy about s 28 concerns the inclusion of religious grounds on an equal basis with race. Certainly human history is at least as riddled with abuse of religions as it is with abuse of racial groups. Also, one of the world’s great religions, Judaism, classifies its adherents on matrilineal grounds, rendering it akin to a race, though nothing is offered here on whether Judaism is a race or religion, or both. 

The usual distinction offered is that religion is a set of ideas, which one may choose, modify or abandon, whereas one has no choice over one’s race. As a result, the right to freedom of speech in the form of the right to discuss, debate and indeed lampoon religion is a fundamental feature of a free society, but the same arguments cannot be applied to discussion of race…”

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