"Upskirting" made illeagle in England and Whales

seamus wrote: »

"Hard cases make bad laws".

That's just a trite aphorism that has nothing to do with the rest of your post. It usually refers to sad cases that inevitably fall outside of the scope of a piece of legislation, I don't see the relevance.

For example, you introduce an anti-upskirting law. But what if this only applies to upskirting? If some pervert cuts a hole in in a portacabin toilet to take pictures, this law can't be used to prosecute him.

Firstly, I think the objective here - just as in the case of internet bullying legislation - is to publicise the fact that this is explicitly illegal.

Upskirting, as I think you mentioned, is already illegalSo is photographing someone in a toilet cubicle. But in order to combat this specifc (apparently recent) phenomenon, lawmakers are drafting specific legislation for the sake of clarity.

I mentioned legislation around internet bullying. A few years ago, Senator Lorraine Higgins was the subject of vile online harassment and mysoginy, probably because she was one of the few members of the Oireachtas who at that time were active on Twitter. She proposed a piece of legislation to specifically criminalise online harassment, but a number of 'Digital Rights Ireland' types spoke vocally against her, saying that this was already covered under existing law on Harassment. They missed the point entirely. The point was to draw specific attention to this crime, to impose legal clarity to this specific situation. And in fairness, she probably achieved that to some extent, even though that Bill was never enacted.

What if someone has fallen asleep on a beach and their skirt has blown up around their waist? If you make a really specific "upskirting" law, then taking pictures of this individual wouldn't be caught by it.

The aim of any law should be to target the "wrong" rather than the act. What is the part of the act of upskirting that's wrong? The violation of another's privacy for your personal sexual gratification.

Intention (mens rea) is already read into every piece of criminal legislation, unless it has been explicitly deleted from the legislation by its drafters. I haven't read this legislation, but I assume it's sufficiently broad to capture situations like the one you mentioned.

Keyzer wrote: »

I didnt even know whales wore dresses.

You never saw My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding?