Law According To A King

"Hi! My name is Lily and I am an 18 year old A Level student from Northamptonshire. I am currently studying History, Sociology and Politics and hope to study law at university next year. I am particularly interested in Human Rights law, and the way in which this intersects with LGBTQ+ issues." Liberal’, ‘tolerant’ and ‘progressive’ are all terms that most would associate with the British legal system. The most significant changes in pursuit of these factors have been made rather rapidly and recently, most notably through the Equality Act 2010. This combined previous ad hoc anti-discrimination laws, and combined them into one piece of more coherent and accessible legislation. The Act contains nine ‘protected characteristics’: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. Workplace and wider social discrimination against an individual falling into any of these categories is no...

"My name is Safiya Rizvi. I will be starting year 13 this September. I want to do pursue higher studies and career opportunities in the field of law. I am trying to gain work experience, for example, I just did a law work experience program with Springpod. My interests are public speaking, debating and doing Theater. Besides English, I also know French and Hindi as other languages. I have good analytical, research and communication skills because of my A-level subjects." What is ‘Hate Speech’? First and foremost, the legal definition of Hate Speech differs from country to country. Let’s see how the Cambridge Dictionary defines it - "public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation". These aspects of a person’s identity are known as ‘protected strands’ of identity. Any form of communication that demonstrates hatred towards any individual based on, along with the th...

Through seeking equality, the law seems to aspire to do the impossible: erase differences. Though progressive legislation and regulations in Europe often single out disabled persons for favourable treatment to overcome systemic and historical disadvantages, the core approach of the law remains the same. This is undoubtedly a more challenging task when seeking to ensure all disabled people live on an equal footing, and the law has often given up when it seems too hard, particularly considering how the disabled community are uniquely diverse in their characteristic that qualifies them for protected status; for the LGB+ community, they are protected by virtue of their sexual orientation, for ethnic and racial minorities, it may be their culture or their skin colour, and for women, men, and transgender individuals, they are protected because of their sex. Disabilities are far more diverse than even culture: some estimates have there being 6,000 distinct cultures in the world, whereas there...

"I'm an A-level student studying English Literature, History, and Government and Politics, currently serving as Deputy Head Girl of Herschel Grammar School, and a Co-Founder of the Herschel Law Society. I hope to study Law at university and pursue a career in the legal industry. I love to read - currently reading "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky"." The question raised about felon disenfranchisement also inevitably raises the question as to whether the prison system should be more about rehabilitation, or punishment; something which must also be considered when contemplating this predicament. Convicted persons, during the time that they are detained in a penal institution, are legally incapable of voting at any parliamentary or local government election . One presumes this to be completely preposterous because prisoners, even those who serve the average life sentence, will eventually be released into society, and will be expected to become productive citizen...

"17-year-old currently studying law, RE and History at A Levels." 1. Anti-Asian hate crimes during COVID-19. While the pandemic has wreaked havoc on people's health around the world, it has also resulted in an increase in hate crimes targeting a specific racial group. East Asians have recently been subjected to more heinous abuse than ever before and with COVID-19's origins in China, many uneducated individuals have taken it upon themselves to racially attack anyone Asian, believing that just because they are of Asian descent they need to be referred to as some disease. According to data from the UK police, hate crimes against East and Southeast Asians increased by 300 percent in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same period in 2018 and 2019. From name calling, to physical abuse, there has been a wide range of attacks and they are damaging the safety of Asians in society. Jonathon Mok, 23 was just simply walking along Oxford Street when he heard the chants of...

Mill's 'harm principle' forms the basis of many of our legal principles, particularly when viewed from the perspective of a liberal critic. This harm principle, which states that the law should only regulate behaviour to prevent harm to others, has a particularly strong case when considering anti-discrimination law, which exists primarily to prevent people from suffering the effects of both direct and indirect discrimination - direct being when a rule singles a group out for unfavourable treatment (think segregation or denying service to gay customers), and indirect being when an apparently neutral rule has a disproportionate impact on a minority group (for example, literacy qualifications for voting may disproportionately harm immigrants or minorities from low-education backgrounds). The harm principle underpins much of anti-discrimination law, but when it comes to certain areas, the law seemingly abandons it and takes a different approach, and these shall be examined in t...