A district judge was not entitled to form a view, beyond reasonable doubt, that a suitable elementary education was not being provided by a Co Kerry mother who chose to educate her three children at home, the High Court has found.
Because the Oireachtas had not defined in law what constituted a suitable elementary education under the School Attendance Act of 1926, a district judge should be very slow to find a parent guilty of an offence under that Act, Mr Justice Geoghegan said.
He was giving judgment in a case related to Mrs Christine Best, who was prosecuted in Listowel District Court under the 1926 Act after she withdrew two of her children from Dromclough National School. Mrs Best submitted that she had a constitutional right to educate her children at home.
The family was prosecuted under the School Attendance Act and District Judge Mary O'Halloran found that the children were not in receipt of a suitable elementary education vis-a-vis the State's primary school curriculum. However, she referred the matter to the High Court, asking whether she was prevented in law from pronouncing a formal order of conviction in view of the fact that the Oireachtas had not defined what constituted a suitable elementary education. She also asked whether she was similarly prevented by Article 42 of the Constitution, which inter alia declares that the State acknowledges that the primary and natural educator of the child is the family.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Geoghegan said that, in the absence of statutory definition by the State, it would be wrong for the district judge to go into the fine details of teaching methods.