Quote of the week

Israel has knowingly and deliberately continued to act in defiance of the [International Court of Justice] Order. In addition to causing the death by starvation of Palestinian children in babies, Israel has also continued to kill approximately 4,548 Palestinian men, women and children since 26 January 2024, and to wound a further 7,556, bringing the grim totals to 30,631 killed and 72,043 injured. An unknown number of bodies remain buried under the rubble. 1.7 million Palestinians remain displaced — many of them permanently, Israel having damaged or destroyed approximately 60 per cent of the housing stock in Gaza. Approximately 1.4 million people are squeezed into Rafah — which Israel has stated it intends to attack imminently. Israel’s destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system has also continued apace, with ongoing, repeated attacks on hospitals, healthcare, ambulances and medics. Israel has also continued to conduct widespread attacks on schools, mosques, businesses and entire villages and areas.

Republic of South Africa Urgent Request to the International Court of Justice for Additional Measures South Africa v Israel
2 June 2007

Parents soon to become criminals

When the National Assembly passes the Children’s Amendment Bill in the coming weeks, many parents will instantly become criminals. This is because the Bill outlaws all forms of corporal punishment against children – including corporal punishment by parents of their children.

Many South African parents use corporal punishment as a form of discipline, which means that many parents will now become liable for conviction on charges of assault. An aggrieved child would be able to lay a charge of assault with the Police who will then have to investigate the charges against the parent.

Of course an ordinary person who hits another person will usually be guilty of assault. However, until now the common law allowed parents to hit their children as long as this did not go beyond “reasonable chastisement”. The Bill now scraps that exception.

I personally believe that parents should not hit their children – and neither should they cut off part of their child’s penis as part of a bizarre religious ritual, for that matter. It is barbaric and cruel and can scar someone forever. (I also do not have any children that will drive me to extreme violence so it is easy for me to talk.)

Section 12 of the Constitution also states that ever person has the right not to be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way, and the right to security in and control over their body. The state therefore has a duty to try and stop parents from assaulting their children.

But I do not think the introduction of a complete ban on corporal punishment at this stage is a wise idea. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that this amendment is not going to stop parents from hitting their children. It is also obvious that the members of an overworked and under-qualified police force are not going to pursue cases of assault against parents unless that assault goes beyond “reasonable chastisement”.

This means that the legislature is passing a law that everyone knows cannot and will not be enforced. It is also a law that will not actually change the way parents treat their children. The legislature recognises this because section 139(5) of the Bill states that the Department of Social Development must take all reasonable steps to ensure that education and awareness-raising programmes concerning the effect of the ban are implemented throughout the Republic.

Of course we know and the legislature knows that “reasonable steps” are going to turn into no steps at all.

Why implement the ban then? All it will do is further to erode respect for the Rule of Law. Unfortunately as a society, we are still rather primitive and very far away from accepting that hitting children is a bad idea. When a law now criminalises corporal punishment by parents, those parents are going to start thinking that the law is an ass and need not be obeyed.

This is the typical reaction of a weak state. Because it feels the cannot really change the way people treat their children, they pass a law they know will not be obeyed and then they can feel better about the problem without having to do the real work needed for social change.

The end result is that the society stops believing in the law and it becomes socially perfectly acceptable to disobey the law – even when the law is a good one that needs to be obeyed.

SHARE:     
BACK TO TOP
2015 Constitutionally Speaking | website created by Idea in a Forest