Budget and Financial Policies

South Africa is in the midst of an HIV/AIDS epidemic with more than 6 million people infected.    In 2,000, with infections of newborns in the range of 80,000 per year, the anti-retroviral drug Nevirapine offered the potential of preventing the infection of 30 – 40,000 children per year.  The drug was offered to the Government for free for five years, but the South African Government announced it would introduce Mother-To-Child-Transmission (MTCT) only in certain pilot sites and would delay setting these up for a year, thereby denying most mothers access to treatment.  The Treatment Action

The Texas Constitution declares that “a general diffusion of knowledge” is “essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people”. Further, the Legislature and State have a duty “to establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of free schools” (Article VII § 1). Here, the Petitioners sought a review of an appeal court's order that reversed a trial court judgment which found that Texas' school financing system violated the Texas Constitution. This system relied on local property taxes to fund schools.

In 1993, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, as well as several students and their parents, filed a complaint asserting that New York State's educational financing scheme, in violation of the state Constitution, fails to provide public school students in New York City, an opportunity to obtain a sound basic education. Gross underfunding of schools had allegedly led to a scarcity of basic resources, as well as low test scores and graduation rates.