Enforcement/Implementation of ESCR

This case concerns a 2009 appeal before the Constitutional Court of South Africa, brought by the Head of the Mpumalanga Department of Education (HoD).

Mark Keenan received intermittent psychiatric treatment since the age of 21. At 28, Keenan was admitted to prison, initially to the prison health center. Several attempts were made to transfer him to the general population, but his mental health worsened each time. Following a transfer attempt, he assaulted two guards and his sentence was increased by twenty-eight days. The next day Keenan hung himself.

Shortly after the plaintiff, Jamie Sinnott, was born in 1977, doctors discovered he was severely autistic.  For the next 22 years of his life, his mother attempted to provide her son with basic speech, language, and motor skills, as well as toilet-training.  Unfortunately, she discovered that the few institutions for children with severely physically and mentally disabilities in Cork, Ireland did not meet the continuous education needs of her autistic child. In 1997, Mrs.

In 2003, four year old Jeremiah Cronin, diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity and autism, was assessed as needing a 32-hour-per-week intensive home-based program to meet his special needs while awaiting placement in Cork CABAS School.  His mother instituted an action for injunctive relief directing the Minister for Education (“the Minister”) to provide such home-based tuition for 29 hours per week during the child’s pre-school phase.  She claimed that her son was entitled to a free primary education under the Irish Constitution, relying on the Irish Supreme Court’s reference to uph