by Breda O'Malley October-21-2013 in Employment Law

The use of judicial review in the employment law context was clarified in a recent High Court ruling reinstating a school Principal after her demotion by the school’s Board of Management to classroom teacher.

Nora Kelly, Principal of St Joseph’s National School in County Wicklow, was granted leave from the High Court to seek judicial review in April 2013, of the decision to demote her. The school Board had rejected a recommendation from an outside body, the Disciplinary Appeals Panel, following Ms. Kelly’s appeal to them, in which the Panel had expressed the view that demotion was an excessive sanction in the context of the dispute. The school Board had argued that the matter should not be subject to judicial review because the relationship between the parties was fixed by a private law contract of employment.

Ms Justice O’Malley ruled that the disciplinary procedures involved in the case were based on statute rather than contract and that the decisions of the Board of Management to demote Ms. Kelly in November 2012 and to disregard the recommendation of the Disciplinary Appeals Panel in March 2013 should be quashed. The Judge stressed that this does not mean that every aspect of school disciplinary procedures are suitable for judicial review. However, “there is a very significant difference between the giving of an oral or written warning…and the appointment, demotion, or dismissal of a Principal. This is so partly because of the profoundly more serious consequences for the individual concerned, but also because of the wider, public implications for the whole school and the community which it serves.”

Carol Fawsitt represented Nora Kelly in the case. (Nora Kelly v The Board of Management of St Joseph’s National School, Valleymount, Co Wicklow – 2013 IEHC 392).

Back to Full News