States agree to make smacking children illegal

16th January 2019

​The States agreed to ban smacking children during today's States sitting (Tuesday 15th January 2019).

Members agreed by 38 votes to 3 to adopt a proposition of Deputy Mary Le Hegarat that legislation should be drafted to repeal Article 79 of the Children (Jersey) Law 2002, which currently allows 'defence of reasonable corporal punishment of a child' to parents and carers. The Council of Ministers have been asked to bring forward the changes as well as to implement awareness-raising, guidance and training about the forthcoming ban on corporal punishment (P.144/2018).

The States also agreed to make changes to various financial regulations to assist the work of the Jersey Financial Services Commission (P.138/2018, P.139/2018 and P.140/2018). They made changes to the public employee's pension regulations to clarify the position of members who had had to move from the final salary pension scheme to the career average scheme (P.141/2018). In addition, the States adopted air navigation regulations to bring Jersey's legislation in line with the rules of the air in neighbouring jurisdictions (P.142/2018).

Decisions of the States on 15th January 2019.

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