Court to hear bid by information regulator to stop publication of matric results

06 January 2025 - 18:00 By Ernest Mabuza
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A case to decide whether the basic department of education can publish the matric results in the media is set o be heard on Tuesday. File photo.
A case to decide whether the basic department of education can publish the matric results in the media is set o be heard on Tuesday. File photo.
Image: 123RF/paylessimages

An urgent application by the information regulator to obtain an interdict against the release in the media of the 2024 matric results will be heard in the Pretoria high court on Tuesday.

The matric results are set to be announced next week.

Two weeks ago, the regulator fined the department of basic education (DBE) R5m for failing to comply with an enforcement notice in November which ordered the department to make an undertaking it would not publish the 2024 matric results in the media.

The regulator also announced it had approached the court on an urgent basis to try to stop the publication of the results. The department is opposing the application. AfriForum and Maroela Media were added as interested parties to the case.

AfriForum said the regulator was trying to prevent the department from releasing the matric results in public media because it maintained it would be a violation of matriculants’ right to privacy.

AfriForum’s head of cultural affairs Alana Bailey said AfriForum and other parties had succeeded in a case on the same issue in 2022.

She said the judge had ruled in favour of AfriForum that the release of matric results was in the public interest and that the use of examination numbers instead of the matriculants’ names provided sufficient protection for their privacy.

Bailey said an order was then issued in 2022 that the results had to be published. She said this order was still valid.

She said the case on the merits of the withholding or publication of the results would follow later in the year.

TimesLIVE


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