Legal rights are those bestowed onto a person by a given legal system. The law of obligations is one branch of private law under the civil law legal system. It is the body of rules that organises and regulates the rights and duties arising between individuals. Both parents and children have rights and obligations regarding the idea of discipline, and in Australia it is effective, however, only to a certain extent. Notions of justice regarding fairness, equality, access, timeliness, enforceability and resource efficiency need to be addressed when considering these rights and obligations of parents and children regarding discipline. Discipline in the form of smacking in more recent years has become a fairly controversial topic. It is debatable in the sense that new concepts have been raised in that smacking may have long and short-term psychological effects on the child. However, it is also known that there is a clear difference between smacking and child abuse, and in terms of child abuse Australia has many forms legislation in protecting the rights of child in its current state.

It is ineffective in terms whereby parents in Australia have the right to implement discipline in their own terms, on the grounds they are not not overseeing boundaries in physical punishment constituting child abuse, therefore resulting in psychological trauma. Using physical pain or even just a threat of physical pain to teach/educate/better a persons decision may be considered to many wrong. The Conventions on the Rights Of the Child (CROC) is the most internationally recognised treaty on the planet, it sets out the basic rights of children and the obligations of governments to fulfill those rights. This international document outlines in Article 19 that “Governments should ensure that children are properly cared for and protect them from violence, abuse and neglect by their parents,