Why are we creating new laws to criminalise things that are already criminal?

The Lord Advocate’s guidelines do not appear to be saying anything new. I would question the necessity of this legislation, which is not, as far as I can see, adding to the criminal law in any helpful way.

If you have got a lot of bits and pieces of law relating to the same subject, there is always the risk that there might be some confusion. But primarily, I wonder why we are creating a new law to criminalise things that are already criminal.

We welcome any contribution to the debate about the difficulties that exist with regard to conduct at football matches and any other places. We are absolutely against the type of conduct the Lord Advocate has in mind.

But legislation of itself is unnecessary.

It also refers to people involved in certain conduct abroad that might not be criminal in those places. There’s a question mark over whether it is appropriate to legislate in that way – and I would question whether the Scottish Government is actually able to do that.

If they arrest someone in Timbuktu for behaving in some appalling fashion, extradite and try him, it might be open to challenge if he is prosecuted under legislation for something that was not criminal where he was doing it.

I think our general concerns are highlighted by the list of exceptions the Lord Advocate has set out, such as singing the national anthem and making religious gestures.

It then makes mention of officers having regard to proportionality, legitimate football rivalry and common sense.

All of these things indicate there’s a degree of vagueness in what they are trying to criminalise, and that is likely to cause a problem.

Common law breach of the peace and Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act are sufficiently clear and well-defined laws to deal with this issue.

I do not have the same problem with them as I do with these broad propositions that are qualified with references to common sense, proportionality and legitimate football rivalry.

When we are asked to give evidence again, we will question, as we did previously, this bill’s desirability and necessity. We thought previously that the Scottish Government paid some attention to what we had to say, along with all the fairly loud voices from the church and other groups. Hopefully, it will do so again.

With the threatening communications element of the new bill, our view has been that it does not add to the law, as to make threats to anyone is already an offence in common law.

They are already prosecuting the people who made threats to Neil Lennon. We do not need to new laws to do that.

Debating these issues is important, but I don’t think it’s necessary to legislate.

We recognise something needs to be done about these issues, but not new legislation – rather better enforcement of existing laws.

l Bill McVicar is convener of the criminal law committee at the Law Society of Scotland.