Significance of the Case
The case is significant for its engagement of the question of the relationship between constitutional socio-economic rights and common law rules (i.e. judge-made rules) of property law and the related question regarding whether and to what extent constitutional socio-economic rights impose duties on non-state actors such as the Trust. In this respect the Court made a number of significant observations: 1) the right to basic education indeed imposes on private parties at least a duty to respect (i.e. the duty not to interfere in its exercise); 2) at least under the circumstances of this case, a private party does not have the affirmative duty to provide basic education, such affirmative duty resting in the first place on the state; and 3) in context of the common law rules of eviction, a court must exercise an equitable discretion in light of all relevant circumstances in deciding whether or not to grant an eviction order. This caserequired the court to consider the impact that an eviction order would have on the right to basic education.
The Court also distinguished the constitutional right to basic education from higher education, stating that unlike the right to higher education, which the State is obligated to make progressively available, the right to basic education is “immediately realisable” and thus may only be limited by a “law of general application which is reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom.”
(Updated July 2015)