Submitted on Wednesday 5th October 2011
Rejected on Wednesday 21st June 2017
Current status: Rejected
Rejection code: duplicate (see below for details)
Protection of liberty and freedom of speech by removal of "insulting" from Section 5 of Public Order Act (1986)
It is a key tenet of liberal democracy that freedom of speech be protected. This is central to liberalism in the preservation of civil liberty, and central to democracy in that the plurality of voices in the public domain is critical for the competitive electoral spirit on which genuine democracy is based.
There is overwhelming democratic support for free speech and hence for the idea that, though curtailment of this liberty is appropriate in some circumstances (e.g. contractual agreement, or Doctor-patient confidentiality), insult by criticism of a behaviour, ideology or world-view does not constitute a sufficient reason to undermine that liberty. To assert the contrary is to begin to erode liberal democracy itself.
Therefore, we, the undersigned, call for the removal of "insulting" from Section 5 of the Public Order Act (1986).
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The Government e-Petitions Team gave the following reason:
There's already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
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