SK's (A MINOR) Application - acting by SJ1, Her mother and next friend
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judge | Deeny J |
| Judgment Date | 24 January 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] NIQB 9 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Northern Ireland) |
| Date | 24 January 2017 |
1
Neutral Citation No: [2017] NIQB 9 Ref:
DEE10159
Judgment: approved by the Court for handing down Delivered:
24/01/17
(subject to editorial corrections)*
2016 No: 55300
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
________
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION (JUDICIAL REVIEW)
________
IN THE MATTER OF AN APPLICATION BY SK (A MINOR) ACTING BY SJ1,
HER MOTHER AND NEXT FRIEND FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW
and
IN THE MATTER OF DECISIONS MADE BY THE MINISTER FOR
EDUCATION FOR NORTHERN IRELAND ON 23 MARCH 2016
________
DEENY J
Introduction
[1] The applicant is a pupil at Little Flower Girls’ School, Somerton Road, Belfast.
She brings this application to challenge the decisions of 23 March 2016 of the then
Minister for Education for Northern Ireland, Mr John O’Dowd MLA, to approve
development proposals (“DPs”) 440 and 442 to close the school and amalgamate it
with St Patrick’s College, Bearnageeha, immediately adjacent to it, in September
2017.
[2] The application was brought on 22 June 2016, three months after the
decisions, a matter to which I will return later. Maguire J granted leave on
22 November 2016 for this application to quash these decisions on one ground only.
That ground is to be found at paragraph 3(c) of the Amended Order 53 Statement
which reads as follows:
“The Minister acted unlawfully and/or in an irrational
manner in taking the decision to approve the
development proposals without having completed an
Equality Impact Assessment or equality screening and/or
failing to have due or any regard to the need to promote
2
equality of opportunity under Section 75(1)(a) of the
Northern Ireland Act 1998.”
[3] The judgment on the leave application is reported at [2016] NIQB 92. At [15]
therein the judge expressly reserved the issue as to whether the Section 75 point
would fail in any event because it should have been pursued by way of a complaint
to the Equality Commission rather than by judicial review. In the concluding
paragraphs the judge was of the view that the application had not been brought
promptly and that as prejudice may arise in the case which could be substantial that
was a live issue which he would defer to the full hearing of the matter. The
applicant made representations to the court on 6 January 2017, when there were
difficulties arranging a date convenient to all counsel, and I directed the listing of the
matter before me on 12 January 2017.
[4] At the hearing Ms Denise Kiley appeared for the applicant.
Dr Tony McGleenan QC and Mr Philip McAteer appeared for the respondent.
Mr Donal Sayers appeared for the notice party, the Council for Catholic Maintained
Schools. I am grateful to all counsel for their able written and oral submissions. I
have taken all these submissions into account even if not expressly referred to in this
judgment. It is obviously in the public interest to decide this matter and deliver this
judgment before parents choose schools for their children currently in P7 for the next
academic year.
[5] The essence of the applicant’s case can be summarised succinctly. The Little
Flower is an all-girls non-selective secondary school. It is a Catholic maintained
school serving the North Belfast/Glengormley area. If it is amalgamated with
St Patrick’s College to become a co-educational school there will be no single sex
non-selective secondary school for girls with a Catholic ethos available in that area
thereafter. Dominican College will still be there but only for grammar school pupils.
[6] In contrast, points out the applicant, the two controlled non-selective
secondary schools in North Belfast are not being merged. Boys’ Model and Girls’
Model will remain as independent schools. The applicant’s mother and next friend
deposed that this would be true of the Ashfield Schools for Boys and Girls also but I
pointed out at the hearing that they are in fact in East Belfast and not in this area.
[7] The applicant through her counsel argues that there is a breach of the Section
75(1) obligation in that the Minister failed to have due regard to the need to promote
equality of opportunity between persons of different religious belief. She was able to
draw attention to clear statistical evidence that, at least in this area, the religious
belief of the pupils attending the controlled school is almost entirely Protestant and
that of the children attending the maintained Little Flower School almost entirely
Catholic. (Dr McGleenan pointed out that the applicant is not herself Catholic but an
adherent of another long-established religion.) Therefore, Ms Kiley says, the Minister
failed to have due regard to this unequal outcome by which there will continue to be
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5 cases
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JR130's Application
...NIQB 5 at paras [27]-[34] and the decision of Maguire J in McCords’ (Raymond) Application [2016] NIQB 85 and Deeny J in SK’s Application [2017] NIQB 9. [103] As identified by the parties, the only case in this jurisdiction where a decision has been quashed as a result of a failure to comply......
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JR 253's Application (Leave Stage) and in the matter of a decision of The Department of Education
...CCMS. This exact issue was the subject matter of a judgment by Deeny J in the case of Re SK’s (A Minor) Application for Judicial Review [2017] NIQB 9. In dealing with the issue, he concluded at paras [44] and [45] as follows: “[44] The Equality Commission published, as set out above, a Guid......
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GC's (A Minor) Application by his mother and next friend
...judgment of this court in Department of Education v Cunningham [2016] NICA 12 was cited to the judge, nor of myself in In Re SK (A Minor) [2017] NIQB 9, although they were both decisions relating to school closures in Northern Ireland. I hope I may be permitted to quote from a short passage......
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JR267's Application (Leave stage)
...Equality Commission. Colton J described this as a “well-established legal precedent in this jurisdiction.” [79] In Re SK’s Application [2017) NIQB 9, leave was granted on the section 75 ground in a school closure case but ultimately Deeny J concluded that there was no basis to find that it ......
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