QQ v Board of Management of a School
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | Mr Justice Dignam |
| Judgment Date | 21 March 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] IEHC 302 |
| Court | High Court |
| Docket Number | Record No. 2021/5858 P |
[2023] IEHC 302
Record No. 2021/5858 P
THE HIGH COURT
Interlocutory relief – Injunctions – Disciplinary process – Plaintiff seeking interlocutory injunctions – Whether the disciplinary process should be restrained
Facts: The plaintiff applied to the High Court seeking various interlocutory reliefs directed at an ongoing disciplinary process. It was her case on the motion that the disciplinary process was irreparably flawed. The plaintiff sought interlocutory injunctions restraining the defendant school from: (1) commencing and/or continuing with any disciplinary process based on the report attached to the defendant’s letter of 28 May 2021; (2) proceeding with the disciplinary hearing for 3 and 4 November 2021; (3) dismissing the plaintiff from her employment and/or imposing any disciplinary sanction upon her, in reliance upon any “findings”, “conclusions” or “facts” contained in the report; (4) commencing and/or continuing with any disciplinary process involving any decisions made by or to be made with the participation of the Chair of the defendant and/or any members of the defendant’s Board of Management who participated in the decision of 27 May 2021 and/or based on any report prepared by the Principal of the school; (5) seeking to investigate and/or to discipline the plaintiff in respect of matters where the plaintiff had carried out duties for and on behalf of the Minister for Education and/or the Department of Education pursuant to Department Circular 37/2000 or otherwise; and (6) dismissing the plaintiff from her employment, or imposing any disciplinary sanction upon her save in accordance with the requirements specified by DES Circular 49/2018 and the requirements of fair procedures.
Held by Dignam J that the appropriate relief was an amended version of relief 2 in the Notice of Motion. In circumstances where the disciplinary process under Stage 4 of the Circular was commenced by the delivery of the Principal’s report, Dignam J granted an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendant, its servants or agents, from continuing with any disciplinary process based on the report attached to the defendant’s letter of 28 May 2021 pending determination of the proceedings. Dignam J held that relief 3 was redundant given that it referred to a disciplinary hearing for 3 and 4 November 2021. Dignam J held that relief 4 was not necessary as the imposition of a disciplinary sanction could only occur on foot of the conclusion of a disciplinary process and that process had been restrained pending determination of the proceedings, but gave the plaintiff liberty to apply.
Dignam J held that there were a number of limbs to relief 5: regarding the first limb, the disciplinary process had already commenced and there is no evidence of an intention to commence any other process; regarding the second limb, this was caught by relief 2; regarding the third limb, the basis for this limb was the allegation of bias on the part of the Board arising from their alleged consideration of the Principal’s report or their alleged inadequate consideration, and a serious question had not been established in respect of those matters. Dignam J held that, in circumstances where he held that a fair issue was not established in respect of the defendant’s entitlement to discipline the plaintiff in respect of the matters contained in the Principal’s report, there was no basis for an order in terms of relief 6. For the reason set out in respect of relief 4, Dignam J did not believe that an order in terms of paragraph 7 was necessary, but gave the plaintiff liberty to apply.
Relief granted in part.
Judgment of Mr Justice Dignam delivered on the 21 st day of March 2023 .
The plaintiff seeks various interlocutory reliefs directed at an ongoing disciplinary process. The background to this application is as follows.
The plaintiff is an Irish teacher and co-ordinator of the Irish Department in the defendant school (“the school”). Her son attends the school. He was due to the sit the Leaving Certificate in June 2020.
By email of the 27 th May 2021 the Principal of the school initiated Stage 4 disciplinary proceedings against the plaintiff under Department of Education Circular 0049/2018 by sending to her and the school's Board of Management a copy of a “ comprehensive report on serious issues of alleged misconduct on [her] part (Stage 4 Disciplinary Proceedings)” (“the Principal's Report” or “the Report”) along with a booklet of relevant documentation referenced in the Report together with a copy of Circular 0049/2018. This circular sets out the disciplinary procedures agreed between the Department of Education, schools and teachers' unions.
The next day the Chair of the Board of Management wrote to the plaintiff notifying her of the initiation of the disciplinary proceedings by the Principal and requesting the plaintiff to provide her response in writing to the Report and to attend a meeting of the Board of Management.
The body of the letter, over the course of approximately a page and a half, set out “ a summary of the allegations made against [the plaintiff] in the report.” This Court is not concerned with the merits or otherwise of these allegations. They are matters for the disciplinary process and I, therefore, do not propose to set them out in detail. In summary it is alleged that the plaintiff used her position in the school as teacher and as the department coordinator to gain an unfair advantage for her son in respect of the 2020 Leaving Certificate by, inter alia, taking various specified steps in respect of her son's subject level choice, contrary to the relevant Ministerial direction, the stated position of the State Examinations Commissions, and instruction by the Principal and Circular 0037/2020 (dealing with calculated grades).
The background to the initiation of these disciplinary proceedings rests in the Covid-19 pandemic and the alternative arrangements which were made in respect of the 2020 Leaving Certificate and various steps which the Plaintiff took in response to the announcements of these alternative arrangements.
On the 19 th March 2020 the Minister for Education and Skills announced that all oral and practical exams for the Leaving Certificate were being cancelled. This obviously included the Irish oral exam. It was announced that students would receive 100% marks in lieu of the assessment. It was also announced at that time that students who were due to sit the oral exams in the affected subjects would take their written exams in those subjects at the level that they had indicated when confirming their subject choices to the State Examinations Commission in January 2020. It seems that normal practice in previous years was that students completed a State Examinations Commission form in the January of their Leaving Certificate indicating what level they intended taking but that this was not binding and that students were free, on the day of the relevant exam, to take the Higher level, Ordinary level, or Foundation level even if they had nominated a different level on the form. The Minister's announcement appeared to preclude this for the 2020 written exams. It will be remembered that when the orals were cancelled it was still anticipated that students would be sitting a written exam.
Immediately after the Minister's announcement had been communicated to staff in the school by the Principal, the class teacher raised the issue of two students (including the plaintiff's son) who had changed levels from Higher to Ordinary level and had indicated on the State Examinations Commission form that they wished to take the Ordinary level paper but had subsequently changed their mind after their mock exams and had resumed studying at the Higher level. She made the point that traditionally the State Examinations Commission forms were “ indicator forms” only. They did so with a view to the school making representations to the State Examinations Commission that the students be allowed to sit the exam at Higher level. The plaintiff also contacted various school personnel. The Principal declined to make such representations, saying that the Minister's statement was clear and unequivocal. It is fair to say that the plaintiff was displeased with this response and continued to raise the issue with the school including through the Year Head, Deputy Principal, the Principal and the Chair of the Board of Management. She also contacted the State Examinations Commission directly.
On the 8 th May 2020 the Minister announced the postponement of the Leaving Certificate exams and that students would be offered the option of receiving calculated grades or of sitting the 2020 Leaving Certificate exams at a later date. The announcement gave a summary of the process relating to the calculated grades option and provided a link to a guidance document in relation to the system of calculated grades. A core part of the system was to be that a school's principal, deputy principal(s), teachers or other members of the school staff must not under any circumstances discuss with any student or with the parents or guardians of any student the estimated marks that the school was submitting.
In the weeks that followed this second announcement (May and June 2020) the Plaintiff raised the issue of the level at which the two students should be graded under the calculated grades system with the school and with various school personnel. She also raised it directly with the Department of Education (which had taken over responsibility for the calculated grades process when the Leaving Certificate was postponed) The plaintiff forwarded her correspondence with the Department to the Senior Management team in the school because the Department required confirmation from the school that the student had...
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