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Equal Education v. Minister of Basic Education

Judgments

Country

Rights Involved

Issue

National Court

Summary: At issue was a law, Regulations Relating to Minimum Uniform Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure (“Norms and Standards”), which stipulates infrastructure standards that all public schools must meet and deadlines by when various kinds of infrastructure must be provided to schools. Petitioners raised five problems with the Norms and Standards: [1] the escape clause, which limited the requirement to meet infrastructure standards to only situations where resources were “forthcoming” from government or other agencies; [2] The exclusion of schools built only partly or substantially from inappropriate materials; [3] The lack of an accountability mechanism ensuring that Norms and Standards plans and progress reports are made public; [4] the vagueness of the term “prioritise” in relation to compelling the government to meet specific deadlines; [5] The exclusion of schools for which plans existed before the adoption of the Norms and Standards were published. The Court ruled in petitioners’ favor on all issues, ordering that various provisions of the law and their practical implementations be brought in line with the Constitution.