Parental liability for minor children that bully in Colombia

Abstract

The birth of a child means moral, economic, and educational responsibilities for the parents, which arises from the duties of solidarity and family dependence. These aspects impose a specific legal duty on the parents to monitor and educate their child, which becomes more significant in cases of bullying at school, since it involves human dignity and other rights of minors. From this, emerges the parents’ subjective and tort liability as a result of the mere act of failing to meet their parental duties; which is to say that parents are liable for damage caused by their bullying child, and that it is based on the presumption of guilt for poor monitoring or education. This article aims to clarify the concerns regarding this problem, departing with the analysis of the parental relationship as a source of obligations, and the responsibility concerning a child’s harmful act, the imputation of the harm, the guilt and the link of causality.