Top court rules against Limpopo’s nursing policy

SHADRACK Tebeila’s litigation threats were dismissed as shallow by a Limpopo government official who said he was a “small boy”.

But the young community activist emerged triumphant after the high court, and subsequently the Constitutional Court, vindicated him.

Tebeila, 25, who is also an advocate, had gone to the provincial Health Department to query the Limpopo Nursing College’s admission policy.

The college, which trains prospective nurses and places them in public hospitals and clinics, is an entity of the provincial government.

The college’s admission policy rejected prospective students who had matriculated three years before their application for enrolment.

Last July, three disgruntled applicants approached the Tebeila Institute of Leadership, Education, Governance and Training, for help. The young lawyer is the institute’s chairman.

“They told me it was unfair to them because they had been applying for the past three years after they had matriculated and they were unsuccessful. In the third year, they were told that they don’t qualify because they matriculated three years ago,” Tebeila said.

He went to the department’s offices in Polokwane to verify the college’s admission policy. He was told that it was the college’s policy.

“I said we will meet in court, and the official said I was a ‘small boy’, and I can go to court if I so wished’,” Tebeila said.

“Three weeks later, we served them with court papers,” he said.

A month later, in August, the high court in Pretoria, sitting in Polokwane, ruled that the college’s admission policy had unfairly excluded aspirant students’ chances to train as nurses.

Judge Ephraim Makgoba found that the college’s admission policy was constitutionally invalid. But the high court ordered that the applicants and the respondents should pay their own legal costs.

Tebeila, who also represented the institute in court, was unhappy.

He appealed against the high court’s costs order directly to the Constitutional Court.

Tebeila argued that because he had won the case against the department, it had to pay his legal costs.

On Thursday, the Constitutional Court agreed with him, and set aside the high court’s costs order.

“The respondents must pay the applicant’s costs in the high court,” the Constitutional Court ruled.

The top court said the high court had made a mistake. “The applicant was entitled to its costs.”

It cited the Biowatch Trust case, which came before the Constitutional Court as a precedent.

“In that case, this court found that the general rule in constitutional litigation between a private party and the state is that if the private party is successful, it should have its costs paid by the state. If unsuccessful, each party should pay its own cost,” the Constitutional Court ruling stated.