Protecting and Balancing Rights of a Child and Adherence to Religious Beliefs of Parents in Nigeria

Abstract

In Nigeria, as in many other jurisdictions, parents or guardians may act on behalf of children and other persons deemed as lacking full legal competence to act on their own.  This may include deciding on the religious belief to be practiced or followed by the child.  The right of parents to do this is recognized in both domestic and international law.  The paper discusses Nigerian cases in which the right of a parent to choose a religious belief or practice for a child was invoked in reference to submission to medical treatment considered by the parent as contrary his or her religious beliefs.  The paper argues that law and religion, jurisprudentially, are media of social control and do have their divergence and convergence. It finds that while Nigerian courts recognize the right of parents to choose religion for their children, they will not permit any religious practice prejudicial to the child. Court decisions on this subject are largely predicated on the ‘best interest’ of the child principle encoded in Federal and State legislation on children’s rights. The paper further makes recommendations on balancing the trajectories of law and religion, by advocating that sanctity of human life, in recognition of which suicide is outlawed, requires that even adults should not be allowed to object to medical treatment on religious grounds where refusal may result in death. This is ‘disguised suicide.’