Guidelines on circumcision from one of Australia's peak medical bodies refute the findings of a German court that has ruled that circumcising young boys represents grievous bodily harm.

Yet the law in Australia does not protect a doctor from being accused of assault or abuse after performing a circumcision, experts say.

The court in Cologne declared that the procedure violated a child's "fundamental right to bodily integrity". The court said the right of the child outweighed that of the parents.

The case concerned a four-year-old Muslim boy who was circumcised at the request of his parents, but was later taken to hospital with bleeding.

The doctor was charged and tried for grievous bodily harm but was acquitted on the grounds that he had parental consent.

Prosecutors appealed against the decision but the doctor was again acquitted, this time owing to the imprecise nature of the law.

But the ruling said "the body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision".

"This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs."

The Cologne ruling is not binding, but legal experts said it appeared to clarify a grey area in the law and would offer a guide to doctors.

Parental choice

Australian experts, however, argue that circumcision should remain a decision for parents to make.

An extensive statement prepared by the paediatrics and child health division of the Royal Australian College of Physicians says that circumcision is not warranted for young boys, yet parental choice should be respected.

"The frequency of diseases modifiable by circumcision, the level of protection offered by circumcision and the complication rates of circumcision do not warrant routine infant circumcision in Australia," the college says.

"However it is reasonable for parents to weigh the benefits and risks of circumcision and to make the decision whether or not to circumcise their sons."

About 10 to 20 per cent of newborn boys are circumcised in Australia, down from 90 per cent in the 1950s.

Australia has no law against male circumcision, as there is against female genital cutting.

Legal review

A Tasmanian academic, Warwick Marshall, found in 2008 that the law failed to clarify whether the person doing the circumcision, usually a doctor, but sometimes a religious figure, was committing assault or abuse, or that consent from the parents was protection against criminal and civil action.

It sparked a review by Tasmanian Law Reform Institute which is due to present its findings in the coming months on whether circumcision could be found illegal.

A circumcision doctor, Hershel Goldman, said he "doubted very much" whether the issue would be pursued in Australian courts like it has in Germany.

"The Australian position is very pro-people choosing and that there should be no judgment on parents one way or another," Dr Goldman said.

He believed that the psychological and physical harm of excluding a child from their religious or social group by not circumcising them can outweigh the risk of harm from the medical procedure itself.

"Parents have to make moral decisions that will impact their children every day," he said. "You're the parent, you have the right to make that decision."

Jewish leaders reacted angrily to the decision in Germany.

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said it was "an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the self-determination of religious communities".

Experts said the decision would not be enforceable in other jurisdictions in Germany but the legal uncertainty and threat of prosecution could lead doctors to decline to perform the procedure.

Holm Putzke, a criminal law expert at the University of Passau, said the ruling was not binding for other courts, but could send a welcome signal.

"After the knee-jerk outrage has faded away, hopefully a discussion will begin about how much religiously motivated violence against children a society is ready to tolerate," he told the German news agency DPA.

- with The New York Times and AFP