Children
and Education (Amendment) (Jersey) Law 2020
A LAW to amend the Children (Jersey)
Law 2002 and Education (Jersey) Law 1999.
Adopted
by the States 10th December 2019
Sanctioned
by Order of Her Majesty in Council 3rd April 2020
Registered by the Royal Court 17th April 2020
Coming into force 24th April 2020
THE STATES, subject to the sanction of Her Most
Excellent Majesty in Council, have adopted the following Law –
1 Children (Jersey) Law 2002 amended
The Children (Jersey) Law
2002[1] is amended in accordance
with Articles 2 and 3.
2 Article 35 (causing
harm to or neglecting children under 16) amended
In Article 35, paragraph (5) is deleted.
3 Article 79 (limitation
of defence of reasonable corporal punishment) substituted
For Article 79 there is substituted –
“79 Abolition of defence of reasonable corporal punishment
(1) Any defence of reasonable corporal punishment of a child under
customary law is abolished.
(2) Accordingly, corporal punishment of a child cannot be justified
in any civil or criminal proceedings on the grounds that it constituted, for
the purposes of any rule of customary law –
(a) reasonable punishment; or
(b) acceptable conduct.
(3) In this Article, “corporal punishment”
means, in relation to a child, administering a physical act on the person of a
child for the purpose of punishing that child (whether or not there are other
reasons for administering the act) which would constitute assault.”.
4 Education (Jersey) Law 1999 amended
In Article 36A (power of members of staff to use reasonable force) of
the Education (Jersey) Law 1999[2], for paragraph (6) there is substituted –
“(6) In paragraph (5), the reference to
giving corporal punishment to a child is to administering a physical act on the
person of a child, for the purpose of punishing that child (whether or not
there are other reasons for administering the act) which would constitute
assault.”.
5 Citation and commencement
This Law may be cited as
the Children and Education (Amendment) (Jersey) Law 2020 and comes into
force 7 days after the day on which it is registered.
l.-m. hart
Deputy Greffier of the States