High Court rules in favour of Hoërskool Overvaal

Judge William Prinsloo delivered a scathing judgement in favour of the Afrikaans medium school  on Monday. 

He upheld an urgent application by the School's Governining Body (SGB) by overturning the decision by the Gauteng Education Department (GDE) to force the school to admit the learners. 

"On the overwhelming weight of the evidence and for all the reasons mentioned, I find that on the probabilities the school has no capacity to receive the 55 English learners, let alone to do so on such short notice. And to convert to a double medium school.. On the overwhelming probabilities, Phoenix and General Smuts English medium schools have enough capacity to accommodate the 55 English learners, or what is left of them given the undisputed breakdown offloaded about them from the respondents own system," said Prinsloo. 

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He relied on the school's submission of evidence regarding an independent consultant who assesed the school and found that for safety reasons it can only admit 598 pupils. 

Prinsloo says GDE did not asses the schools infrastructure itself and relied on minutes of a meeting with the school. 

Prinsloo rejected the department's submissions that it can override the schools language policy. 

Affidavits

Judge Prinsloo also accused the department of intimidating the principal's of two high schools in the area into changing their affidavits.

The Principals of Pheonix High School and General Smuts High School, submitted two conflicting affidavits, the first set explaining to the court that their schools had space for additional learners and a second set stating the schools were full to capacity. 

He read screen shots of a conversation between one of the principals and an official from Hoërskool Overvaal, stating that a meeting was held at the education department’s district office where one of principals was threatened to change his affidavit or lose his job and his pension. 

"These are obviously very troubling revelations regarding the conduct of officials of the department. In as much as these conversations may amount to hearsay. I exercise my discretion in terms of section 3 of the Hearsay Amendment Act. I declare the evidence as duly admitted as this is in the interest of Justice," said Prinsloo

The application by the school was upheld with costs.

GDE was ordered to place these 55 pupils to other English medium schools in the area. 

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi tried to console upset parents after the judgement. The department has vowed to appeal the ruling.