The High Court has ordered St Q’s College to allow two sixth-year pupils to return to school while their judicial review cases continue. The order is interlocutory: it permits them to attend for the 2018/19 academic year pending the full and final determination of their proceedings. It does not decide whether the school’s disciplinary decisions were lawful or determine the eventual outcome of the cases.
The proceedings concern two pupils identified in the judgment as B and C, both minors suing through their mothers. The court said that on 3 October 2018, a separate pupil, identified as Schoolchild A, apparently snorted what may or may not have been cocaine on school premises. B and C filmed the incident on their phones and uploaded the footage to Snapchat. The judgment said neither A nor B was alleged to have taken an illegal drug, and the incident was not alleged to have been planned.
The school’s board decided on 15 October to expel B and C, notifying their parents by letters dated 16 October. The judgment explained that under the statutory process and the school’s code, expulsion would not take effect immediately and the pupils remained suspended during the intervening period. The court treated the challenges to expulsion as also challenging the associated suspension.
The pupils’ court filings raised separate allegations about the disciplinary process, including alleged failures of fair procedure, representations said to have been made during interviews, the weight given to their prior records and the proportionality of expulsion. In C’s case, the filings also argued that he filmed the incident rather than taking a substance. These were pleaded complaints for the later substantive hearing, not findings made in this interim application.
Applying the test for interim relief in judicial review, the judge found that the cases met the low threshold of being arguable. He considered the balance of potential injustice, including the disruption to the pupils’ education in the year before their Leaving Certificate examinations and the school’s interest in continuing its disciplinary process. The court said that process, including the pupils’ appeal rights, could continue while they attended school. It also noted that educational welfare officers considered the pupils would be better back at St Q’s.
The judge concluded that each applicant had a case of some strength, without deciding disputed facts or complex legal issues, and granted an interlocutory injunction requiring the school to permit both pupils to attend and continue their education during the 2018/19 academic year, pending final determination of the proceedings.