In a battery management system, a charging/discharging relay has a relay switch coupled to a charging/discharging line of battery cells and a driving coil driving the relay switch, a relay driving unit is coupled to the driving coil so as to control the driving coil, a first switch is coupled to the charging/discharging relay so as to control on/off of the charging/discharging relay, and a control unit applies a control signal to control on/off of the first switch. The battery management system further includes a short circuit protection (SCP) for cutting off the power input to the coil of the relay in the occurrence of a failure in the first switch, so that the charging/discharging line may be prevented from being in an uncontrolled state due to the occurrence of a failure in a circuit component.