Rights body seeks apology from MEC
Equal Education not backing down as constitutional rights to protest violated
ADVOCACY group Equal Education (EE) has approached the Pietermaritzburg High Court to order KZN Education MEC Mthandeni Dlungwana and provincial police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi to publicly apologise to them.
The group claims their constitutional right was violated by the Department of Education and police when their “peaceful” protest was shut down last year.
In papers before the court, Equal Education chief executive Ntshadi Mofokeng said they brought the application seeking assistance from the court “in the absence of any meaningful response” from the department.
But the department said it tried to meet the EE twice thereafter, but its representatives did not attend the meetings. The department and police have since opposed the application.
The gathering took place in July last year when the EE organised a protest outside the department’s office in Burger Street, Pietermaritzburg. The protest of about 30 people included pupils from Nquthu who were demanding school transport.
According to the EE, the department adopted a Scholar Transport Policy, which states that pupils are eligible for school transport if they have to walk for more than 3km between home and their nearest appropriate school.
“We were informed that only 15 out of the more than 500 schools in this district were provided with scholar transport and that this was due to budgetary constraints,” she said.
At the protest, the EE intended to screen a film called the
which highlighted the years of struggle of EE members to secure more effective school transport provision in the province.
Mofokeng said they complied with all the formalities in the Gatherings Act, and the protest began peacefully. However, despite this they were approached by police officers and the department’s head of security, who challenged whether they had “permission” to gather and eventually ordered EE members to disperse.
On questioning this order, they were allegedly told to disperse or police officers would be ordered to use tear gas on them.
Mofokeng said most of the people gathered were under 18 years old and fearing for their safety, they made a decision to halt the screening of the film and to end the gathering.
Representing both the department and the provincial police, the Acting Deputy Director for Risk Management in the department, Andreas Shangase, denied the EE’s claims.
He said at no point were the protesters chased away, told to stop screening the film, or threatened in any way. In their responding court papers, Shangase also said affidavits giving the view of pupils on what happened were unnecessary and asked the court to show its displeasure by an appropriate costs order.
Shangase said the vagueness of the gatherings approval was a major factor as it did not stipulate where the gathering could be held. There are seven offices for the Department of Education in Pietermaritzburg.
“It is also important to note that no one from the department was invited to the gathering. It is important for the department to be invited to provide input. Also, it meant that the department could not plan for the gathering. This we find to be unfair and violated the department’s rights,” Shangase said.
He said one of the other issues they found was that pupils were present at the gathering without teachers or parents.
“If a school wishes to embark on an excursion during school hours, it needs approval from the department. The children would have travelled long before 4pm from Nquthu to reach Pietermaritzburg. They were still in school uniform and had no teachers or parents present with them,” he said adding that the department also had rights as an organ of state.
A court date for judgment has not yet been set.