AG: ST CHARLES FREE TO REFUSE KALIFA

Private schools and other institutions have the right to operate according to their own rules and policies without any constitutional sanction, Attorney General John Jeremie stated yesterday. This legal position as outlined by Jeremie indicated that St Charles did not infringe on the Constitution when it refused to accept Kalifa Logan on the basis of its rules. He was speaking at a post-Cabinet news conference at Whitehall yesterday. In a nutshell Jeremie said that the constitution protected the rights of the individual against the State and its agencies. “A private institution can operate in a way that violates people’s rights without constitutional sanctions,” he said. When asked: Even if it performs a public function, he said, “That is where you can have a potential area of dispute,”  adding that that was why the hijab case was brought — under public purpose grounds.

He said that the law was not settled with respect to that. In this regard he said that parents were free to take legal action on their own, but the hands of the State were tied in such matters. Minister of Education Hazel Manning also underscored the point that the Ministry had no jurisdiction over private schools. According to the Education Act, “we look after our (Government) schools, then there is the Concordat where we have an arrangement with the assisted schools. Private schools don’t come under this jurisdiction,” Manning stressed. She added: “Our relationship with private schools depends on negotiation and working out issues. In this particular case, we began negotiating with the principal and the mother of the girl. We could not force the school to change its rules. And you must remember that we have a large problem of indiscipline in schools. We have been encouraging principals to ensure that they have a code of conduct, to ensure that we set up student councils and so on...We negotiated and discussed and it was based on what was happening that we had the Archbishop stepping in and taking a decision which is exactly what we wanted to happen,” she stated.

Manning emphasised that the Ministry of Education did as much as it could under the circumstances.“We talked to the principal. We talked to the parent and that is how the head of  that private body (RC school) was able to step in and say ‘listen, let’s accept her (Kalifa).” She said she had asked her secretary to get in touch with Kalifa’s mother in the hope of holding a meeting with her, possibly today. She said Kalifa was registered at El Dorado Secondary. Manning conceded that there should be a review of the licensing arrangement under which the Ministry of Education licensed private schools. The position outlined by the AG and the Education Minister is in contrast to statements made by two of their colleagues. Government Minister Fitzgerald Hinds had stated last week that the action of Sister Noel, principal of St Charles flew in the face of the constitution, the law, morality and godliness. Acting PM Dr Lenny Saith had stated last week that St Charles had to operate within the law and not discriminate against persons.