Parents should
not be able to defend charges of assault against children by
claiming they were using ‘reasonable force’ to correct a
child, says the Chair of the New Zealand Law Society's
Family Law Section, Simon Maude.
He was responding to the
jury’s acquittal in Timaru of a mother charged with assault
for giving her son six strokes with a cane and a separate
charge arising from striking him with a horse whip. She was
found not guilty because of the statutory defence in section
59 of the Crimes Act 1961, which allows parents to use
reasonable force when disciplining children.
Simon Maude
said the acquittal reinforces the Family Law Section's view
that the statutory defence should be repealed.
“Modern
understanding of the cyclical nature of domestic violence
and the harm it does, demands that our law no longer
condones parents using violence against children,” he
said.
The Family Law Section has already written to the
Government expressing its opposition to the law in its
current form and has offered to help draft appropriate
replacement
legislation.
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