Elite school’s ousting of boys unconstitutional – court

The Constitutional Court has found against an elite private school in Johannesburg that kicked out two boys on account of their father’s “unacceptable” behaviour.

Delivering the ruling yesterday, Justice Leona Theron found the school’s decision was unconstitutional “due to the failure to afford the [parents] an opportunity to be heard on the best interests of the boys”.

“In addition, the decision was unconstitutional as, absent a fair process, it was self-evidently and objectively not in the best interests of [the boys] and, moreover, in violation of [the school’s] obligation not to interfere with the boys’ right to a basic education, in the absence of any appropriate justification,” she said.

The case went to court after the school, Pridwin Preparatory, decided to give effect to a termination-on-notice clause in the contracts it had entered into with the boys’ parents. This was in the wake of what it called “a matrix of persistent harassment of Pridwin staff members”.

In its court papers, Pridwin pointed to one incident in which the father had “rudely and aggressively” accused the teacher in charge of tennis of being “incompetent, demoralising of the children and having no appreciation of the damage she was doing to the children’s enthusiasm for tennis”.

In their papers, the boys’ parents claimed their children had been forced to leave “the only school they had ever known”.

Moreover, they charged, this was without so much as a hearing, “let alone a hearing on the best interests of the children”.

Their case was dismissed in the High Court in Johannesburg as was an appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein. By the time the boys’ parents approached the Constitutional Court in a last-ditch bid for vindication last year, the boys had already changed schools and Pridwin argued that the matter was, as a result, moot.

But the court yesterday disagreed and found it was in the interests of justice for it to make a ruling.

“This is the first time that this court has had an opportunity squarely to address the rights of pupils at independent schools,” Theron said. “It is also a rare opportunity, not because of the scarcity of rights violations in independent schools, but because of the difficulties and costs involved in litigating these matters to the appellate and apex levels. Most parents and pupils in the applicants’ situation would not have the resources to bring a matter before this court.”

Ultimately, the court found that Pridwin bore a “negative obligation” in terms of the constitution “not to impede the rights to a basic education that the children enjoyed pursuant to their enrolment at Pridwin”.

“Pridwin was obliged to hear [their parents] at least, on whether cancellation was in the children’s best interests.”

The court declined to award the parents costs, though, because of the “conduct that led them to this court”.