Definition of &quot;religious belief&quot; under the UK Crime and Disorder Act 1998 The UK's 1998 Crime and Disorder Act defines &quot;religious group&quot;: In this section “religious group” means a group of persons defined by reference to religious belief or lack of religious belief. It does not appear to define &quot;religious belief&quot; anywhere. Does anyone know if this draws on other legislation or perhaps if there is any relevant case law relevant to its definition?
This is a partial answer as it doesn't address the religious aspect. Grainger plc v Nicholson may be of relevance. That case was about Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (freedom of religion or belief) and focussed on the belief element rather than the religion element. The court held that the following criteria must be met for something to be a belief under the ECHR: The belief is genuinely held. It is a belief and not an opinion or viewpoint. It relates to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour. It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance. It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, be not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others. These are known as the Grainger criteria and are also of relevance in relation to Section 4 of the Equality Act 2010.
There is no such law in the US, although there many laws prohibiting specific forms of harm, for example laws against murder, theft, assault, arson. All laws are predicated on the idea that an illegal act causes harm, but I don't get to deem, for example, that you are harming society by opposing Satan. There are no laws prohibiting any belief in the US, and such a law would be unconstitutional (in violation of the First Amendment). So being a Satanist could not possibly be illegal.
In the United States, each state is free to define their own version of what is rape and what is sexual assault. Many States view rape and sexual assault to be of &quot;equal severity&quot;, but they are punishable under different laws. For example, Kentucky defines rape as any non-consensual intercourse and includes anal sex and object penetration in the definition of intercourse. Alaska does not define rape in its criminal code but all forms of unwanted sexual penetration (by object or other) under sexual assault charges. New York defines rape as sexual intercourse without consent and all other unwanted contact under sexual assault. Source: takepart.com As you can see, the definition of rape and sexual assault is either combined or broken out into separate laws. In most States though, the punishment for either rape or sexual assault is considered the &quot;same severity&quot;. Under Federal crimes, rape is not defined but is grouped under 18 US Code 2241-2248. Punishment for these crimes range from a fine through life imprisonment. So for the United States, your (1) and (2) either may be classified as &quot;rape&quot; or &quot;sexual assault&quot; but the severity of the offense and the punishment is usually equal under the eyes of the law. Taking New York for example... Sec. 130.00 defines terms Sec. 130.50 Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree Sec. 130.52 Forcible Touching Sec. 130.35 Rape 130.50 (Criminal Sexual Act, which (1) and (2) fall under) is a Class B Felony, so is 130.35 (Rape). They all fall under Sec 70.80 for sentencing, which says that a Class B Felony must be a term between 5 and not exceeding 25 years. You can look up the laws in other States, but many follow the same pattern, either they lump sexual assault and rape under the same law, or they break them apart into distinct &quot;rape&quot; and &quot;sexual assault&quot;, but use the same sentencing guidelines.
This is incest new-south-wales Incest is defined as sexual intercourse between close family members which includes siblings and half-siblings. Sexual intercourse includes penetration of the genitalia or anus with any part of the body or any manipulated object and application of the mouth or tongue to female genitalia (among other acts). It earns you up to 8 years imprisonment. There is no specific law against pornography depicting implied or illegal acts (child pornography excepted). However, I suspect such material would be Refused Classification; the distribution of which is a crime attracting a penalty of up to 12 months.
There isn't likely to be a single universal definition; a word can be defined in different ways for different laws. It's entirely possible that these laws have no more specific definition of "food" than what you've found. In that case, a court interpreting the law would presumably follow the plain meaning rule, under which "ordinary words have their ordinary meaning". Should there be a dispute, a judge would have to determine whether the substance in question is "food" in the ordinary sense of the word (in some cases, judges have cited widely used dictionaries when looking for an "ordinary" definition). They would also try to determine whether the legislature would have intended this particular substance to be covered by the law.
Is it true? No, that is inaccurate. References to protected categories are not a requisite element of harassment. Typically harassment is defined as a pattern of conduct (thus encompassing two or more acts) consisting of unconsented contact that would cause a reasonable person to be frightened, annoyed, distressed, molested, and/or experience other unpleasant emotions. See, for instance, the definition of harassment in Michigan legislation, MCL 750.411h(1)(c). The notion of harassment can --but does not necessarily-- involve targeting or attacking of one or multiple protected categories in which the victim belongs. For instance, sexual harassment is understood as harassment with purposes of mocking the victim's sexual orientation, or procuring sexual gratification from/with that person. The adjective &quot;sexual&quot; merely qualifies the context of the troubling pattern of conduct, but that term in and of itself is not what imports the character of harassment. The examples in the paragraph you quote are inaccurate and/or inconclusive because they would highly depend on the context. The adjective &quot;selfish&quot; is not sufficiently related to Judaism, whence it would be unreasonable for a Jew to allege religious harassment merely because somebody called him &quot;selfish&quot;. Instead, a finding of religious harassment would involve repulsive allusions to themes or elements to which Jews would be sensitive based on historical grounds (such as nazism, and antisemitism), doctrinary grounds (jokes about pigs), and so forth. Where I can find a complete list that includes all the possible words? For the reasons explained above, there is no such list. Words would have to be assessed in light of the context in which the course of conduct takes place. Furthermore, not all harassment involves words. Harassment, regardless of its type, can be in the form of drawings, gestures, physical contact (such as sexually molesting a person), voiceless phone calls, and following a person, to name just a few methods.
canada The person claiming self-defence must have the subjective belief that &quot;a threat of force is being made against them or another person.&quot; Such belief must also be based on reasonable grounds. They must also act with the subjective purpose of protecting themselves or the other person from that use or threat of force. This comes from the text of the defence, codified at s. 34 of the Criminal Code. It reads: 34 (1) A person is not guilty of an offence if (a) they believe on reasonable grounds that force is being used against them or another person or that a threat of force is being made against them or another person; (b) the act that constitutes the offence is committed for the purpose of defending or protecting themselves or the other person from that use or threat of force; and (c) the act committed is reasonable in the circumstances. &quot;Unless the accused subjectively believed that force or a threat thereof was being used against their person or that of another, the defence is unavailable&quot; (R. v. Khill, 2021 SCC 37, para. 52). The National Judicial Institute's model jury instructions slightly rephrases: [the accused] believed that force [or the threat of force] was being used against him/her [or against another person] and [accused]’s belief was based on reasonable grounds Regarding evidence in general: the court needs some evidence on which to give an &quot;air of reality&quot; to every element of this defence in order to place the burden on the Crown to rebut the defence beyond a reasonable doubt. This does not require the accused to testify about their subjective belief. The evidence about the subjective belief can come from elsewhere in the evidence. For example, even if an accused had no memory of the encounter, there may nonetheless be evidence about their subjective belief: video evidence of the encounter, hearsay evidence about what the accused said during the events, physical evidence revealing a defensive posture, etc. The evidence must support an inference of a subjective belief in a threat. It is not enough that the evidence shows that a subjective belief would have been reasonable. But none of that is relevant to the question of what the elements of self-defence are or whether an act taken without the subjective belief that the accused or another person is being threatened is self-defence. The question has helpfully taken the standard approach to legal hypotheticals of just asserting what the facts are in order to take questions of evidence off the table.
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.