ABSTRACT
This chapter will contribute to the debate on honour and violence via a critical examination of the provocation defence and will argue that the law has, for many years, tolerated and mitigated ‘honour killings’ committed by the dominant group in Western society. The aim of the chapter is to problematise the manner in which notions of honour, shame and ‘honour killings’ have recently been constructed as specific to certain cultural, ethnic and religious groups and as being ‘other’ to the norms and standards of Western society1 (see, for example, Bennetto 2004; Bird 2007; Jones 2003; Marshall 2007; Merge 2006). This self/other construction enables the law and society to condemn killings by ethnic-minority groups, or more specifically Asian (and frequently Muslim) men, whilst potentially rendering invisible the relevance of honour and shame to those homicides committed by Western men. It will be argued that the partial defence of provocation has long been used successfully by men who kill their partners, and while the current law of provocation focuses on a loss of self-control, the roots of the doctrine are premised upon a white Western notion of male honour. However, the less emotive term ‘domestic homicide’ is generally used to refer to ‘Western honour killings’. In addition to illustrating how the defence of provocation mitigates ‘Western honour killings’, this chapter will also critically examine the requirements of the provocation defence as it has operated to date and query whether the law could and indeed should mitigate ‘ethnic honour killings’. The chapter will commence with an overview of the historical develop-
ment of the provocation defence and its links to male honour and then proceed to examine how the modern-day defence still protects a form of male honour and problematically shames women. In addition to examining the requirements of the modern defence of provocation and the problematic of ‘ethnic honour killings’, the latter part of the chapter will also comment upon the issues relating to the admissibility and relevance of cultural evidence. The chapter will conclude by arguing that the law should not be allowed to mitigate any homicides which are premised upon patriarchal and oppressive attitudes towards women.
