The Kirk will this week consider calls to outlaw the smacking of children in Scotland and remove the legal defence of "justifiable assault" that parents have under the existing law.
Parents and guardians would be prevented from using corporal punishment at any time under the proposal, which will go before the Church of Scotland's General Assembly on Tuesday.
The Church and Society Council, which reviews the Kirk's position on key policy issues, has called on church representatives to "recognise that corporal punishment of children is damaging to mental and physical health".
In what would be a groundbreaking change to the law in Scotland, it calls on government ministers to change the law so that "children have the same legal protection from assault as adults".
The Scottish Government has repeatedly stated that it has no plans to change the existing law, which allows parents to smack children using a defence that focuses on so called reasonable chastisement.
Under the existing law parents are allowed to smack a child with their hand as long as it does not leave a mark or bruise, although corporal punishment in schools has been illegal since the early 1980s.
However, Church and Society Council members want Scotland to follow the example of Sweden where all physical punishment of children has been outlawed for over 30 years.
Rev Martin Johnstone, a Church and Society Council spokesman, told the Sunday Herald that he hoped the Kirk would vote to support such a position on Tuesday in what would be the first time it had backed an outright ban on smacking, along the lines of the 'Children Are Unbeatable Campaign".
He said: "The position at the moment is that the policy as it exists does not think that corporal punishment is inappropriate.
"This proposal wants to change the policy and update the mood of the church. It's saying that all kinds of abuse is fundamentally wrong and we need to look at the best examples across the world for laws about the protection of children.
"We're recommending that the church joins the lobby that says smacking of all kinds is wrong and if that in turn encouraged the government to look at that, that would be welcome."
Johnstone, who has put together a report with the Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, said there had been unanimous support for changing the Kirk's position among members of the Church and Society Council, after it was asked to review its stance on corporal punishment.
He said: "The church has not debated this policy for a number of years and we were asked in 2014 to look at the issue. All I can say is that the council in bringing this report is absolutely unanimous in saying this is the right thing."
The Church of Scotland Assembly will vote on the detailed proposal from Johnstone and Foster-Fulton on Tuesday morning.
Johnstone and Foster-Fulton's proposal states: "In the context of considering issues from a theological basis and in the context of a developing international human rights framework, it is right for the church to support measures to oppose corporal punishment for children.
"This should include a call on the Scottish Government and parliament to remove the defence of justifiable assault from the criminal justice Scotland Act 2003 so that children have the same rights as adults."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel