Miscellaneous | The Minister of Education Case

Parents of a five-year-old child planning to attend a private school. They challenged the constitutionality of a notice published by the Minister of Education extending to private schools a notice that he had earlier made that children could only be admitted to public schools in the year in which they turned seven. The parents contended that the Minister did not have the power to regulate private schools in that manner, nor was it in the best interests of their child who would be ready to go to school in the year that he turned six, to have to wait a further year. In a judgment for the Court, Justice Sachs struck down the notice on the narrow ground that the Minister had cited the wrong provision in the Schools Act as the basis for the notice. In his comments Justice Sachs says that it had been amusing to see the Minister, his longstanding friend, colleague and comrade, Kader Asmal, furiously passing notes at the hearing to his counsel. He explains that the facts of the case did not provide a suitable basis for deciding very complex issues about the status of private schools and the best interests of children. So, he was happy for the first time in his judicial career to respond in a purely formal and technical way, and prove that, if he tried really hard, he could write a boring judgment.