Dialogue Fiji has condemned a recommendation by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights to delete a provision banning corporal punishment from the proposed Education Bill 2025, calling the move a backward step that weakens safeguards for children in schools.
The organisation said the committee’s advice to remove Clause 73 — which explicitly prohibited corporal punishment and other forms of degrading treatment in schools — undermines one of the Bill’s most progressive protections for students. Dialogue Fiji’s executive director, Nilesh Lal, described the committee’s justification for deletion as legally and practically flawed, rejecting the argument that constitutional guarantees alone make specific statutory protections unnecessary.
“The Constitution sets out general guarantees. It is legislation that gives life to those guarantees by defining standards, obligations, enforcement mechanisms, and accountability,” Lal said, stressing that rights in the Constitution are not self-executing. “To argue that a protection should be removed from legislation simply because it exists in the Constitution reflects a serious misunderstanding of how human rights are implemented in practice,” he added, warning that the deletion creates uncertainty and risks weakening protections for students.
Lal argued that clear legislative detail is required to make constitutional rights enforceable in everyday settings, providing institutions with obligations and mechanisms to hold duty-bearers to account. He said it is settled constitutional doctrine that legislation must not be inconsistent with the Constitution, but emphasised that laws which strengthen or advance constitutional rights are both permissible and necessary.
The controversy over Clause 73 comes amid an ongoing national debate on corporal punishment. Earlier reporting showed government figures have signalled willingness to weigh domestic considerations against international obligations, and some legal commentators and former MPs have argued the Constitution does not categorically ban parental discipline short of degrading treatment. At the same time, regional jurists and child protection advocates have urged investment in non-violent classroom discipline and teacher training to replace corporal punishment.
Dialogue Fiji’s public rebuke frames the committee’s recommendation as a pivotal development in that debate. By describing the clause as one of the Bill’s most progressive elements, Lal and the organisation are pressing lawmakers to reconsider a deletion they say would leave students more exposed to abuse and leave schools and authorities without clear statutory duties or recourse.
The committee’s recommendation is now part of the parliamentary process surrounding the Education Bill 2025. With the clause’s removal flagged, child protection groups, educators and legal advocates are likely to intensify submissions and public advocacy as the Bill moves through further legislative stages, arguing that explicit statutory prohibitions are needed to translate constitutional principles into enforceable protections for children.