Help - unlawful school closure descision allowed to stand.

[pickledsiblings]

A Judge at Judicial Review has agreed that the decision to close two schools in Wales is unlawful but the closure will go ahead regardless because he felt that the same decision would be reached by the Welsh Assembly Government by legal means.

Does anyone know if this is within the Judge's remit or are decisions usually made on the facts presented?

Some parents affected feel that there is an inequality issue that needs to be raised. Does anyone have any advice on how to bring this to the attention of the Media, perhaps you have a contact that might be interested in this story?

Any advice would be most welcome.

Thank you in anticipation.

I am not familiar with the case but the judge has made this decision on the facts presented. He has decided that the closure was unlawful but that overturning that decision would be pointless as the WAG would simply make the same decision again avoiding whatever mistake rendered the initial decision unlawful.

He cannot order the WAG to keep the school open forever. Unless he concludes that there is no lawful way for WAG to close these schools (highly unlikely) the most he can do is strike down the initial decision and tell WAG to follow the correct process. If the correct process will produce the same result it is a waste of everyone's time and money. The courts don't like making pointless orders.

If those who brought the case believe the judge has got it wrong they are entitled to appeal his decision.

Thank you for that Bridge .

The intention is to proceed with appeal although the parties concerned have been somewhat disheartened as a planning application that resulted from the Judge's decision was submitted and approved within a week despite much local opposition. How likely is it that once contractors have been taken on to do the building work that the Judge will call a halt to those proceedings? Could that factor mean that an appeal will be unlikely to succeed?

What do you think, you sound like a legal bod?

Do you think the press would be interested in the inequality issue? Don't suppose you know anyone to whom a dossier describing the events and highlighting the inequality issue leading up to the Judicial Review would make interesting reading ?

DH did some work in the schools in the valleys - every single village has a teeny tiny school ; there are no economies of scale and little chance for decent teachers to be in each
and the costs of having heads for each is cutting heavily into the budget available to actually spend on pupils
he was firmly of the view that 2/3 of the schools should shut/merge and education in the whole area for all of the children would improve

TalkinPeace the school that I am writing about is a good sized, well regarded school that is oversubscribed for the coming academic year. The local community raised the £20 000 pounds needed for the Judicial Review as one of the reasons quoted for the closure was lack of popularity of the school .

pickled
Aha, have worked out which schools you are on about.
That was the other thing that DH noticed when working in Wales - that the Welsh Language schools were MUCH better resourced than the English ones - something he found unsettling. It is so discriminatory when so many people are not first language Welsh speakers.

Thought you might TalkinPeace2 . Don't suppose you know if the Media would be interested in the whole story? It would be so useful to have a name of someone to send a dossier to so that it's less likely to end up in the bin.

no idea - sorry.

Whether or not building work has started should not affect the outcome of the case but if I were appealing I would think seriously about asking for an injunction to prevent any building work until the matter is decided. There is, of course, no guarantee that an injunction would be granted. I would also check with the other side - there may be no intention to start until the matter is decided, in which case an injunction would be a waste of time. After all, if they start work and the judge then rules against closure that would potentially involve them in quite a lot of expense.

Thanks again for the information Bridge.

Any Media types around on a Sunday afternoon that know someone who might be interested in picking up this 'story'?