Monitoring Hate Crime - CEP, the European Organisation for ...

improve the methods of registration of and criminal policy on criminal discrimination, the
main means being:
firstly a better cooperation of the partners, i.e. the police, the Department of Public
Prosecution, the local councils and the antidiscrimination bureaus,
secondly a new common “Instruction Discrimination” (Aanwijzing Discriminatie) and
thirdly gathering more information on discrimination that takes place on internet.
4. Some Comparative Law Annotations
Above, in connection with the presentation of the subjects “hate crime” and “criminal
discrimination” we already talked about the important differences between the continental, the
American and to a somewhat lesser extent, the English legal system, most important
difference being in the understanding of the principle of legality in the sense of nullum crimen
sine lege, (no crime without a statutory regulation) and nulla poena sine lege, (no sentencing
without a statutory regulation). Most differences between the legal families have historical
reasons. Our principle of legality derived as the Latin words already made obvious, from
Roman law. The extent of the Roman law influence on the different legal systems of the
world is until our times one of the main reasons for the existing differences. Mainly for
political reasons the influence of Roman law on the development of German law was more
intensive than in other countries. In connection with this fact we should, here in Berlin, think
for a moment of one of the greatest German law professors, Friedrich Carl von Savigny
(1779-1861), who worked in this town, however in the field of private law. Speaking in
modern terms von Savigny was a “great fan of Roman law” and the influence of his
outstanding work on the German Civil Code resulted in the fact that German private law still
in our days is so strongly related to Roman law. Here we have one example to show how
differences between legal systems can come to existence by chance. The reasons for the
differences between the regulations of specific discrimination also mainly have historical
backgrounds and they are so great that it is hardly possible to compare the regulations of
various countries in a satisfying way. The same is true for the specific regulations on
blasphemy and the spreading of blasphemous writings regulated for example in the Art. 147
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