What laws cover offences against those with various sets of protected characteristics? The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people against discrimination, harassment or victimisation based on nine &quot;protected characteristics&quot;: age disability gender reassignment marriage and civil partnership pregnancy and maternity race religion or belief sex sexual orientation The Public Order Act 1986 (as amended by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006) introduced a set of &quot;aggravated&quot; versions of existing public order offences, as well, if I'm not mistaken, as creating some completely new offences of its own, such as &quot;stirring religious hatred&quot;. The 1986 Act is only concerned with the characteristics of race and religion, but are there any laws that make it more of a crime to knowingly hit a disabled or gay person than to hit an able or straight one?
Are there any laws that make it more of a crime to knowingly hit a disabled or gay person than to hit an able/straight one? No. But, the victim's charastistics (among other things) will be taken in to account when determining the defendant's culpability at sentencing. The Sentencing Council offers this definition for High Culpability for common assault. Victim obviously vulnerable due to age, personal characteristics or circumstances The are also statutory &quot;hostility&quot; aggravating factors that increase the seriousness, and therefore affect the court's sentence, at section 66 Sentencing Act 2020: 66 Hostility (1)This section applies where a court is considering the seriousness of an offence which is aggravated by— (a)racial hostility, (b)religious hostility, (c)hostility related to disability, (d)hostility related to sexual orientation, or (e)hostility related to transgender identity. This is subject to subsection (3). (2)The court— (a)must treat the fact that the offence is aggravated by hostility of any of those types as an aggravating factor, and (b)must state in open court that the offence is so aggravated. (3)So far as it relates to racial and religious hostility, this section does not apply in relation to an offence under sections 29 to 32 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (racially or religiously aggravated offences). (4)For the purposes of this section, an offence is aggravated by hostility of one of the kinds mentioned in subsection (1) if— (a)at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrated towards the victim of the offence hostility based on— (i)the victim's membership (or presumed membership) of a racial group, (ii)the victim's membership (or presumed membership) of a religious group, (iii)a disability (or presumed disability) of the victim, (iv)the sexual orientation (or presumed sexual orientation) of the victim, or (as the case may be) (v)the victim being (or being presumed to be) transgender, or (b)the offence was motivated (wholly or partly) by— (i)hostility towards members of a racial group based on their membership of that group, (ii)hostility towards members of a religious group based on their membership of that group, (iii)hostility towards persons who have a disability or a particular disability, (iv)hostility towards persons who are of a particular sexual orientation, or (as the case may be) (v)hostility towards persons who are transgender. (5)For the purposes of paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (4), it is immaterial whether or not the offender's hostility is also based, to any extent, on any other factor not mentioned in that paragraph. (6)In this section— (a)references to a racial group are to a group of persons defined by reference to race, colour, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins; (b)references to a religious group are to a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief; (c)“membership” in relation to a racial or religious group, includes association with members of that group; (d)“disability” means any physical or mental impairment; (e)references to being transgender include references to being transsexual, or undergoing, proposing to undergo or having undergone a process or part of a process of gender reassignment; (f)“presumed” means presumed by the offender. And, for completeness, as well as the Public Order Act 1986 cited in the OP, further racially or religiously aggravated offences msy be found in Part II Crime and Disorder Act 1998.
No The argument is vacuous in any event because AFAIK all jurisdictions that enforce sex discrimination laws have parental leave (paid or unpaid), not maternity leave so a man is just as likely to need it as a woman. This, of course, raises the issue of discrimination by marital status (on the basis that unmarried people are arguably less likely to have children) or age (on the basis that people outside 'childbearing' age are less likely to have children; fortunately these types of discrimination are also illegal. Notwithstanding, the loopholess you think there are in the laws are simply not there. For example s14 "Discrimination in employment or in superannuation" of australia Sex Discrimination Act 1984 starts with: (1) It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against a person on the ground of the person's sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, marital or relationship status, pregnancy or potential pregnancy, breastfeeding or family responsibilities: Later in s30 "Certain discrimination on ground of sex not unlawful" it says: (2) (a) the duties of the position can be performed only by a person having particular physical attributes (other than attributes of strength or stamina) that are not possessed by persons of a different sex from the relevant sex; If the job requires excessive strength or stamina, then you test your recruits for the level of strength or stamina the job requires.
Some are, some aren't. For instance, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits all employment discrimination on the basis of race, including discrimination against whites. On the other hand, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act explicitly only protects people who are at least 40, and the Supreme Court held that it only applies to discrimination against older workers in favor of younger workers in General Dynamics v. Cline. While both laws forbid discrimination on the basis of X, the Supreme Court held that Congress clearly meant to limit ADEA to discrimination against older workers. You specifically use veteran status as an example. Veteran status is protected by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The point of the law is explicitly to make it easier for people to serve in uniform without messing up their career. The law specifically bans discrimination against veterans (or a couple other service-related categories) on the basis of service. It does not ban discrimination in favor of veterans. In fact, the federal government (which is supposed to be a model employer under USERRA) gives veterans a preference in hiring decisions. Congress's goal in enacting Title VII was to make race a non-factor in employment; their goal with USERRA was to encourage military service.
Selective prosecution is when a defendant (1) is charged with a crime based on conduct that others are generally not prosecuted for; and (2) is singled out for an impermissible reason, such as race, religion, or First Amendment-protected speech. Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 608 (1985). Because there is no indication that you are being targeted for an impermissible purpose, this does not appear to be selective prosecution. It does sound like the chief is a jerk, but American courts do not care about that sort of thing.
Generally, irrespective of charge, there is no 'shield laws' in the UK legal system. Any such provisions are a matter of discretion for the judge on the same grounds as the admissibility of evidence. Though the following case relates to a murder case rather than rape, it does provide justification for the lack of 'shield laws'. In R v Davis [2008] UKHL 36; [2008] 1 A.C. 1128 (henceforth Davies), as described in para 3, per Lord Bingham, the witnesses were subject to extensive protective measures, as 'they claimed to be in fear forth their lives if it became known that they had given evidence against the defendant'. [Tom Bingham, The Rule of Law (2011 Penguin) 99]. The case addresses issues at the time of the original hearing. However, more recently, there have been statutory provisions for anonymity of witnesses, specifically section 86 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. This enables witness anonymity orders to be made, however there are specific requirements that can be found in subsequent provisions of the Act, but there is no common or absolute protection of victims or witnesses. A closing note regarding the 'victim' in the rape case, it should be noted that in the UK legal system, as criminal cases are brought by the CPS on behalf of the Monarch, not the victim and as such the victim is, for all intents and purposes, a witness.
In English law there isn't a specific offence of &quot;mooning&quot;. However: It is conceivable that under Public Order legislation someone mooning could be found guilty of causing &quot;harassment, alarm or distress&quot;. There was a man arrested for mooning a speed camera, charged with a public order offence and subsequently acquitted. In 2010 a Kent man was issued with an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) that banned him from mooning (among other things). ASBOs were civil orders, breach of which was a criminal offence. Had that man continued to moon, he could have been found guilty of the criminal offence of breaching the order. (ASBOs have since been replaced with a system of civil injunctions and civil behaviour orders.) It is conceivable that repeatedly mooning one or more particular people would be deemed harrassment. I am not aware of criminal cases but there was an employment tribunal case that found the person had committed sexual harrassment in the workplace because they had mooned a colleague. At common law it is an offence to outrage public decency, &quot;an act which is lewd, obscene or of disgusting character, which outrages minimum standards of public decency as assessed by the jury.&quot; I doubt whether a brief moon would amount to that; worse behaviour might.
It is illegal in Scotland. There is currently no law specifically against it in the rest of the UK. If you find this is unbelievable, yes it is. There are attempts now to change the laws. PS. There are no photos taken "of the act". Taking the photo is the act. The pervs use a selfy stick or just get down on the floor to take photos, or take photos on stairs. PPS. News on Jan 16th 2019: "A new law will now be introduced in the next couple of months. It could mean that perpetrators might face up to two years in prison and are added to the sex offenders register."
Lèse majesté is not prosecuted in the UK While it is still technically illegal to advocate the abolition of the monarchy under the Treason Felony Act of 1848, more recent freedom of speech laws means that it is not possible to bring a successful prosecution. The only reason it hasn’t been abolished is that Parliament has better things to do and, since the government doesn’t bring charges under it, the courts can’t quash it. So, the Monarch has the same legal protections as anyone else.