Michelle Jones
Education Writer
THE Western Cape government had failed in its obligation to consult the public on the closure of schools, a majority of the Western Cape High Court has found.
Public hearings over the closure were “an artificial formality” and “mechanical”, falling short of obligations to consult, and the reasons given for the closure were “extraordinarily brief”, judges said.
Judge Andre le Grange, with Judge Nape Dolamo concurring, found that 17 schools which had opposed their closure should remain open.
Judge Lee Bozalek, in a minority judgment, found that only Beauvallon Secondary School in Valhalla Park should remain open and the others should be closed.
A full Bench of the High Court had reviewed Education MEC Donald Grant’s decision to shut 20 of the 27 schools identified for closure. Seventeen of these schools opposed their closure.
Judge Bozalek took just three minutes to read the court’s order yesterday morning – that the 17 schools remain open.
The court also ordered that Grant and the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) pay the schools’ and school governing bodies’ (SGBs) costs.
In December, a full Bench of the Western Cape High Court granted an interim interdict ordering that the 17 schools remain open until the review was finalised.
Judge Le Grange wrote in his majority judgment that the reasons given for school closures were “extraordinarily brief” given the complex decision Grant had to make.
“The complaint that the reasons… were too brief for any meaningful engagement with the WCED and the MEC, is in my view not without merit.
“The meeting with the SGBs and the public clearly demonstrates that the reasons advanced for the possible closure were largely inadequate.”
Judge Le Grange said the way in which public participation meetings were conducted, where the officials who chaired the meetings did not engage but only allowed those present to speak, further strengthened the schools’ case.
He called these meetings “an artificial formality”.
“The brief reasons provided for closure and the mechanical manner in which the process was followed manifestly impeded effective and proper representations by the applicants and the public.”
Judge Le Grange had not been persuaded that Grant’s decision had not been arbitrary and capricious.
“I am satisfied that the relief sought by the applicants in respect of the closure of the schools should be granted and the decision of the MEC to close the affected schools be reviewed and set aside with an appropriate costs order.”
Judge Bozalek wrote in his minority judgment that there could be no doubt that school closure decisions were complex and Grant’s final decision was “rational”.
“The responses of the SGBs and the school community reveal, in my view, no particular difficulties in their understanding of the gist of the case which led the minister to form the intention to close the school.
“The minister’s closure decisions had to balance a range of competing interests. They were taken after a lengthy and thorough process of investigation and evaluation in which the representation of the affected SGBs and school communities played a crucial role.”
The attack on the constitutional validity of Section 33 of the Schools Act, the legislation which underpinned the way in which an MEC could go about closing schools, was dismissed.
michelle.jones@inl.co.za