Ali v Headteacher and Governors of Lord Grey School

Ratio Decidendi

Facts

The claimant, a 13-year-old pupil at The Lord Grey School in Bletchley, was one of three boys seen leaving a classroom shortly before a deliberately-started fire was discovered there in March 2001; all three were arrested and, after police caution, charged with arson. The school excluded him pending the outcome of the prosecution, but did not follow the statutory notification and review procedures governing exclusions. When the prosecution was discontinued in June 2001 for want of evidence, a reintegration meeting was arranged, but the pupil's family did not attend it, and the head teacher then removed him from the school roll; his family did not decline an offer of interim tuition at a Pupil Referral Unit until later, and he did not start at another school until January 2002. He sued for damages, arguing the unlawful exclusion breached his right to education under article 2 of the First Protocol to the ECHR.

Judgment Summary

The House of Lords allowed the school's appeal, restoring the first-instance decision that there had been no breach of article 2 of the First Protocol. Lord Bingham held that the Convention right is not a right to be educated at any particular institution but a right of access to whatever educational system the state provides; because alternative educational provision (the Pupil Referral Unit) remained available to the pupil throughout the relevant period, even though the exclusion itself was unlawful under domestic education law, there was no denial of the Convention right. The House rejected the Court of Appeal's reasoning that unlawfulness under the domestic exclusion code automatically amounted to a Convention violation.

Key Quotes

Subsequent Treatment