Cape Town - The thousands of learners who wrote matric last year are expected to hear on Wednesday whether their results will be published in the media next week or not.
Judge Ronel Tolmay on Tuesday heard legal arguments by the Information Regulator (IR) pertaining to its submissions that the matter is urgent.
The IR wants to interdict the Department of Basic Education (DBE) from publishing the 2024 matric results in the media.
It maintained that the department has not obtained the go-ahead from the learners that their results may be published and the department must issue the results via its SMS line or the learners can fetch it at the schools where they wrote the exams.
Judge Tolmay, at the start of Tuesday’s proceedings, made it clear that she will at this stage only hear arguments regarding the urgency of the matter.
She refused to, for now, entertain arguments regarding the merits of the application.
The judge pointed out that the historical position over the years was that the results were published in the media and she questioned who would be prejudiced if this was the position again regarding the 2024 results.
She said she was concerned that there was a pending appeal by the department against an enforcement notice the IR issued against the department in November last year, in terms of which it was ordered not to publish the 2024 results.
While the department still has to get the go-ahead to proceed with their appeal, as it was lodged a few days late, the issues regarding POPIA and the IR’s stance that it will be violated if the results are publicly published are expected to be ventilated during those proceedings.
Judge Tolmay also pointed out that the urgent application before her deals with complex issues such as POPIA, and the urgent court is not the forum to deal with these issues. Both the department and Afriforum, who opposed Tuesday’s urgent application, pointed out that the IR was happy to consent to the order and did not object to the results being published the following few years.
Yet, the IR only now objected, they said, which does not render the matter urgent. Judge Tolmay, however, had many questions regarding the issue of prejudice. She was particularly concerned that if she granted the order for the results not to be published, whether it would not prejudice especially disadvantaged learners who do not have devices to access the department’s SMS lines to see whether they had passed.
Advocate Marius Oosthuizen, acting for the department, argued that the 2022 order still stands in place which gives consent for the results to be published.
“Three more matric exams results have been published since then. The IR was part of the agreement to the order, and it is binding on them,” he said.