Scotland
By the law of Scotland, as it originally stood, the punishment of blasphemy was death, a penalty last imposed on Thomas Aikenhead in Edinburgh in 1697. By an Act of 1825, amended in 1837, blasphemy was made punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. The last prosecution for blasphemy in Scotland was in 1843 when bookseller Thomas Paterson was sentenced at Edinburgh High Court to fifteen months in prison for selling blasphemous books.
According to the 18th-19th century legal writer David Hume (nephew of the philosopher), Scots law distinguished between blasphemy, which was uttered in passion generally in the heat of the moment, and other offences which involved the propagation of ideas contrary to religion. It is blasphemy, Hume wrote
when it is done in a scoffing and railing manner; out of a reproachful disposition in the speaker, and, as it were, with passion against the Almighty, rather than with any purpose of propagating the irreverent opinion. The like sentiments uttered dispassionately or conveyed in any calm or advised form, are rather a heresy or an apostasy than a proper blasphemy. — Commonwealth v. Kneeland
The Human Rights Act 1998 applies in Scotland as well as England and Wales, and therefore poses similar challenges to the existing Scottish blasphemy laws as those described above. Additionally, some legal commentators believe that, owing to the long time since successful prosecution, blasphemy in Scotland is no longer a crime, although blasphemous conduct might still be tried as a breach of the peace.
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service considered a complaint under the blasphemy law regarding the BBC transmission of Jerry Springer: The Opera but did not proceed with charges.
Read more about this topic: Blasphemy Law In The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the word scotland:
“A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.”
—James I of England, James VI of Scotland (1566–1625)
“Four and twenty at her back
And they were a’ clad out in green;
Tho the King of Scotland had been there
The warst o’ them might hae been his Queen.
On we lap and awa we rade
Till we cam to yon bonny ha’
Whare the roof was o’ the beaten gold
And the floor was o’ the cristal a’.”
—Unknown. The Wee Wee Man (l. 21–28)
“The “second sight” possessed by the Highlanders in Scotland is actually a foreknowledge of future events. I believe they possess this gift because they don’t wear trousers.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)