We welcome SCA judgment in corporal punishment case

Joint press statement: The Children’s Institute and the Equal Education Law Centre welcome the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling in the case Centre for Child Law and Others / South African Council for Educators and Others SCA 1289/2022, handed down on 9 April 2024. 

The matter concerned the South African Council for Educator’s (SACE) sanctions against two educators who, in separate and unrelated instances, committed grievous assaults against two children, aged 7 and 10 years old, respectively. The Centre for Child Law (CCL) and the parents of the children took SACE (and the provincial and national education departments as well as the governing bodies of the schools) to the SCA to review and set aside the lenient decisions that SACE made, so that SACE could impose more appropriate sanctions – including training educators who return to the classroom to use non-violent discipline techniques.

Read the full press statement here. Read the judgment here.