Christian schools fail to bring back the paddle

An attempt to bring back corporal punishment in independent schools in Britain was rejected by the House of Lords in 2005.

Law lords reject return of corporal punishment

An attempt to bring back corporal punishment in independent schools was rejected by the law lords yesterday.

Teachers and parents of children at four Christian schools claimed at a hearing before the House of Lords in December that the ban on corporal punishment infringed their human rights.

They said their schools were established specifically to provide a Christian education that was based on Biblical observance and this meant the use of corporal punishment on a limited basis as part of their beliefs.

But their appeals were dismissed unanimously by the law lords. Giving the leading ruling, Lord Nicholls said: “Parliament was bound to respect the claimants’ beliefs in this regard, but was entitled to decide that manifestation of these beliefs in practice was not in the best interests of children.”

Both the High Court and the Court of Appeal had previously thrown out the argument that the Education Act 1996, which prohibits smacking in all schools, infringed the parents’ and teachers’ religious freedoms under Article 9 of the Human Rights Convention and their right to an education of their choice.

The schools involved in the proceedings are the Christian Fellowship School at Edge Hill, Liverpool; Bradford Christian School at Idle, Bradford; Cornerstone School at Epsom, Surrey, and Kings School at Eastleigh, Hants.

Lord Nicholls said they claimed to speak for “a large body of the Christian community” whose “fundamental beliefs” include that part of the duty of education in the Christian context is that teachers should be able to stand in the place of parents and administer physical punishment to children.

He said their beliefs were based on the passages from the Bible they had quoted and their aim was not to injure but to give the message that unacceptable behaviour would not be tolerated.

“The aim is to ‘help form godly character’,” said Lord Nicholls, by “loving corporal correction”.

Corporal punishment of boys would take the form of administering a thin, broad flat paddle to both buttocks in a firm controlled manner, according to the claimants.

Girls would be strapped on the hand and then the child comforted by a member of staff and encouraged to pray.

The law lord said there had to be a balance between freedom to practise one’s own beliefs and the interests of others affected by those practices.

“Parliament was entitled to decide that, contrary to the claimants’ submissions, a universal ban is preferable to a selective ban which exempts schools where the parents or teachers have an ideological belief in the efficacy and desirability of a mild degree of carefully-controlled corporal punishment.”

Lady Hale said the case had been about the rights of children and the rights of their parents and teachers.

“Yet there has been no one here or in the courts below to speak on behalf of the children. The battle has been fought on ground selected by the adults. This has clouded and over-complicated what should have been a simple issue.”

Dismissing the appeal, she said: “If a child has a right to be brought up without institutional violence, as he does, that right should be respected whether or not his parents and teachers believe otherwise.”

Phil Williamson, head teacher at the Christian Fellowship School, said that violence in schools was getting worse and corporal punishment would put a stop to it. “You never smack a child for childish behaviour,” he said. “What you smack a child for is wilful defiance and the breaking of moral codes.”

As published in The Daily Telegraph, 25 February 2005

Picture credit: Unknown

 

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