This petition was submitted during the 2017-2019 parliament
Rejected petition Revise Section 127 of the Communications Act.
The current wording is open to abuse. This has lead to several wasteful court cases which are clearly not in the public interest.
Section 127 in it's current form is an affront to our nation's values.
Anything can be offensive. We must be prepared to offend in the pursuit of truth.
More details
Current case law provides that the offence is committed when the message is sent, regardless of whether it was ever received and indeed regardless of whether, if received, it was actually found to be grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. The sole arbiter of whether the message or other material is of an grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character is the Court, applying an "ordinary person" test. And if this test is met, then the Court may regard that mere intention to send a message of that character to be the mens rea.
We have recently witnessed the unnecessary prosecution of Mark Meechan.
Another recent case, Chelsea Russell was convicted for sharinging song lyrics.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.
We're not sure exactly what you'd like the Government or Parliament to do. We understand that you'd like section 127 of the Communications Act to be changed, but we're not sure exactly what changes you'd like to see.
You could start a new petition explaining clearly what you would like the Government or Parliament to do.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.