French Hate Speech Court Decisions and Interviews, 1972-2012

France's Court of Cassation hate speech decisions from 1972 to 2012 are analyzed using 103 case records and interview summaries. Erik Bleich combined court decisions, archival deliberation notes, and interviews with judges, prosecutors, lawyers, NGOs, and academics conducted primarily in 2014-2015. The research examines how victim group identity influences judicial outcomes over time.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in hate speech conviction rates based on victim group identity over a 40-year period.
• Studying judicial reasoning and internal court deliberations through interview summaries and archival notes.
• Comparing legal outcomes for vulnerable minorities versus societal majorities as described in the research conclusions.
• Training models to identify factors influencing Supreme Court decisions in hate speech cases.

Strengths

• Includes 103 substantive hate speech cases reviewed by France's Court of Cassation.
• Combines multiple evidence types: written court decisions, interview summaries, and archival deliberation notes.
• Interviews cover a diverse range of perspectives including judges, prosecutors, lawyers, NGOs, and academics.

Limitations

• Interview records are primarily summaries rather than full transcripts.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The archival information on internal deliberations is not included in the shared data.

Provenance

Source

QDR Harvested Dataverse

Collection Method

Case identification from court records combined with semi-structured interviews and archival research.

Time Range

1972 to 2012 for cases; 2014-2015 for interviews.

Freshness

Last updated 2025-10-20 19:58:33; freshness should be verified.

Geography

France