AN IMPORTANT DECISION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8177, 9 August 1906, Page 2

AN IMPORTANT DECISION.

OP INTEREST TO SCHOOL COMMITTEES. I-BU MESS ASSOCIATION. I. "Wellington, August 8. Sitting in Bauco to-day, His Honor 'ho Chief Justice had before him the 11180 of Lissington versus the Wellington Education Board, in which plainiff, a member of the Northland School Committee, applied for nn interim injunctiou to restrain the defendant Board from appointing a staff of leachers to the now Northland school until * the School Coiamitteo had been consulted on the matter. Tho facts are that the Board recently decided to erect a school at Northland, which >vas part of Karori school district, and on its own initiation called a meeting in April, 1908, for the purpose of de. aiding whether a separate district of Northland should be constituted, and to ask tho mooting to define boundaries. Tho meeting was held and a provisional commilteo was appointed, and it became tho duty of that committee to report upon the school district, and ultimately they, in. June, made a report to the Board as to the proposed boundaries. The Board replied that it wanted to make some general alterations in tho boundaries, and asked the committee to go into tha question, but a meeting to bo held for V that purpose had not yet taken place, : and tho school district itself was not 'yet constituted. Since then the school had been erectod and two teachers appointed by the Board. After argument, his Honour said it was admitted that tha Northland committee had no ~"* k status as there was no school district and therefore no district committee. That being so, then tho Karori district committee had a right to have been consulted. It might be that the Board thought this was really a sort of "no man's land," and that they bound to consult anyone, but tho law assumed that there was a school committee before teachers were appointed, and it seemed that the Karori committee should have been consulted as the committee of the distort, as it still was, for it had never ceased to be the committee of the district, although possibly there wero mombors of that committee who lived in Northland. As it was ■admitted that teachers were not properly appointed, tho noxt question was as to the rights of the Sohoo'l Committee. Following the case of Wilkinson that had been cited, it was jlear that they had certain rights granted to them in the control ot a school, and that the Education Board could not satisEy the Statute by appointing teachers to the school without consulting tho committee. The injiinc. tion would, howevor, have to be modified to restrain the Education Board from permanently appointing tho prolent teachers. If they appointed them 'emporarily, say for three months, vhieh was quite within their power, the arrangement would no doubt be satisfactory, His Honor therefore held that the appointment was ultra vires, md that the Board cannot retain the pro-teachers as such, but might employ hem temporarily. He granted an injunction restraining the Board from acting contrary to this decision. Plaintiff was allowed £lO 10s costs and disbursements.