Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 21-10-2017
While a groundbreaking ruling by the Gauteng High Court makes it illegal to spank your own child in South Africa, the judge also ruled that she didn’t intend for parents to land behind bars but instead find alternative methods of discipline.
The court ruled on Thursday that the defence of reasonable chastisement was not in line with the constitution and no longer applied in law.
Mail & Guardian reports the ruling was made in the case of YG, a religious man who assaulted his son and wife after finding porn on his iPad.
His reasonable chastisement defence was rejected by Judge Keightley – the first time in a South African case, drawing a very clear line in the sand.
Judge Keightley made it clear that she was not ruling against disciplining children, but rather against corporal punishment, or as it’s now to be understood, physical assault.
“The removal of the defence will not prevent religious believers from disciplining their children. It is so that they may have to consider changing their mode of discipline, but in view of the importance of the principle of the best interests of the child, this is a justifiable limitation on the rights of parents.”
Keightley also ruled that children’s rights override religious beliefs.
“This is a case where I am satisfied that it is permissible to require religious parents who believe in corporal punishment to be expected to obey the secular laws, rather than permitting them to place their religious beliefs above the best interests of their children.”
The judgment points out that South Africa is not the first African country to do away with corporal punishment in the home.
It points out that half of the countries in Africa have publically committed to doing so (including South Africa), and that Kenya, South Sudan, Tunisia, Benin, Cabo Verde, the Republic of Congo and Togo have all actually abolished corporal punishment in all settings.
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