Judgment No. CCZ 7/16 17
Const. Application No. CCZ 17/15
minimize social contact with non-members to better maintain their own standards
of morality.”
Adv. Mafukidze places great reliance upon the case of Dzvova v Minister
of Education Sports & Culture and Others 2007 (2) ZLR 196 (S) for the broad
submission that fundamental rights must invariably be respected. In that case, the
Supreme Court affirmed the general proposition that the rules of the school in question
could not be applied to derogate from the constitutional rights of its pupils, including
their freedom of religion. However, the ratio decidendi of the Court was not predicated
on any constitutional point but rather on the principle that the power to make rules on
school discipline and to regulate the admission, punishment and expulsion of pupils was
reposed in the Minister of Education and was therefore outside the remit of the school
Head. Consequently, Dzvova’s case does not, in my view, take the matter any further in
resolving the issues at hand. Moreover, it is also distinguishable from the factual situation
in casu in that the applicant in that case had not subscribed to any contract of admission
entitling the school to interfere with the enjoyment of his child’s freedom of conscience
and religion.
Another more recent case involving facts similar to those in Dzvova’s case
is that of Kapasula & Others v The Headmistress Hermann Gmeiner High School N.O. &
Others Case No. SC 153/10. The applicants’ daughters in that matter were allegedly
excluded from enrolment to the first respondent’s school because their heads had not
been shaven or trimmed for religious reasons. This was in apparent contravention of the
school’s rules and regulations stipulating that all pupils must always be smart with short
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