In a recent decision the Higher Regional Court of Hamm in Germany has set out new rules regulating culturally and religiously motivated circumcision. The court ruled that parents and doctors need to discuss any impending circumcision procedure with the child in question. This case comes in the wake of a 2012 judgment by the Higher Regional Court in Cologne which ruled that religious circumcision of boys constituted “bodily harm” and contravened a child’s right to choose religion in later life. Click here to read a Bulletin article about that case.
While the doctor who performed the procedure in the Cologne case was ultimately acquitted, the court decided that a child’s right to self-determination superseded his parents’ right to freedom of religion. There was uproar from Jewish and Muslim communities in response to the case, and the German parliament passed a law allowing the religious procedure to take place under a new set of rules. Specially qualified members of religious communities can now perform the operation on a boy up to six months of age, after which it must be performed by a doctor.
This most recent Higher Regional Court ruling prohibited a mother from having her six-year-old son circumcised. The Kenyan mother wanted to have her son circumcised in accordance with the tradition of her native country, to ensure his acceptance by visiting relatives. The child's father brought the case before the Court to try and prevent the circumcision.
The court ruled that in instances where the child cannot make the decision whether to have the procedure performed, the mother has the inherent right to decide on his behalf. However, this decision making process is conditional on the parents' and doctors' obligations to inform the child “in a manner appropriate to his age and development” about the procedure and be mindful of his wishes. The court said that this had not happened in this case. It also said that the mother's justification for the procedure (acceptance by visiting relatives) was unsatisfactory, because the family's primary residence was in Germany.
Click here to read an article about the case in Spiegel Online International.
Meanwhile, the Swedish Ombudsman for Children Friedrich Malmberg has written to a newspaper and called for Sweden to make circumcision illegal. In a text co-signed by representatives from the Swedish Society of Medicine, the Swedish Society of Health Professionals, the Swedish Paediatric Society, and the Swedish Association of Paediatric Society, the Ombudsman said “Circumcising a child without medical justification nor his consent contravenes this child’s human rights”.