  |
Children's Rights |
|
Somewhere in the course of instruction it is appropriate to let middle school students know that they have legally entered an important part of life, classically know as the age of reason. At the age of twelve children are considered to be credible. Many churches wait until children to be twelve in order for them to join. The legal system in America honors this passage. This has significance in the student's credibility when reporting information. Class discussions at some point should inform students of the legal benchmarks: 12: Age of Reason: testimony may be admitted with validity in a
court of law, certain legal rights ********************************************************************************** Children's Rights Children have several substantial legal rights. These are: The right to be supported by their parents.
This includes the right to receive food, shelter, clothing, medical
care, and an education, as a minimum. Web sites to Explore:
***************************************************************************** Quotation from: The division of human life into periods
for legal purposes is naturally more sharp and definite than in
physiology. It would be unscientific in the physiologist to name
any precise year for the transition from one of his stages to another,
inasmuch as that differs very considerably among different nations,
and even to some extent among different individuals of the same
nation. But the law must necessarily be fixed and uniform, and even
where it professes to proceed according to nature, must be more
precise than nature. The Roman law divided human life for its purposes
into four chief periods, which had their subdivisions—(i)
in-fantia, lasting till the close of the seventh year; (2) the period
between infant ia and pubertas, males becoming puberes at fourteen
and females at twelve; (3) adolescentia, the period between puberty
and majority; and (4) the period after the twenty-fifth year, when
males became majores. The first period was one of total legal incapacity;
in the second period a person could lawfully do certain specified
acts, but only with the sanction of his tutor or guardian; in the
third the restrictions were fewer, males being permitted to manage
their own property, contract marriage and make a will; but majority
was not reached until the age of twenty-five. By English law there
are two great periods into which life is divided—infancy,
which lasts in both sexes until the twenty-first year, and manhood
or womanhood The period of infancy, again, is divided into several
stages, marked by the growing development both of rights and obligations.
Thus at twelve years of age a male may take the oath of allegiance;
at fourteen both sexes are held to have arrived at years of discretion,
and may therefore choose guardians, give evidence and consent or
disagree to a marriage. A female has the last privilege from the
twelfth year, but the marriage cannot be celebrated until the majority
of the parties without the consent of parents or guardians. At fourteen,
too, both sexes are fully responsible to the criminal law. Between
seven and fourteen there is responsibility only if the accused be
proved doli capax, capable of discerning between right and wrong,
the principle in that case being that malitia supplet aetatem. At
twenty-one both males and females obtain their full legal rights,
and become liable to all legal obligations. A seat in the British
parliament may be taken at twenty-one. Certain professions, however,
demand as a qualification in entrants a more advanced age than that
of legal manhood. In the Church of England a candidate for deacon's
orders must be twenty-three (in the Roman Catholic Church, twenty-two)
and for priest's orders twenty-four years of age; and no clergyman
is eligible for a bishopric under thirty. In Scotland infancy is
not a legal term. The time previous to majority, which, as in England,
is reached by both sexes at twenty-one, is divided into two stages:
pupilage lasts until the attainment of puberty, which the law fixes
at fourteen in males and twelve in females; minority lasts from
these ages respectively until twenty-one. New! Game for Students
|
|
Human Rights of Children and Youth
