High court battle over publication of matric results continue

THE Department of Basic Education and the Information Regulator (IR) are locked in a legal battle in the Gauteng High Court over whether matric results can be published by media outlets early next year.

- ZELDA VENTER

This as matric pupils across the country have started their final exams.

The dispute, ongoing since 2022, centres on privacy concerns under the Protection of Personal Information Act (Popia) versus the public interest in transparent reporting of educational outcomes.

While several judges have up to now given the green light for the publication, the matter has never been fully ventilated.

The dispute over the public publication of matric results began in 2022 when the Department of Basic Education (DBE) tried to prohibit it.

At the time, the judge agreed with AfriForum and the other parties involved that the publication of the results was in the public interest, and that the use of exam numbers instead of the names of the matriculants provided sufficient protection for their privacy.

At the end of last year, the IR tried to prevent the DBE from publishing the 2024 matric results. The TR’s application to obtain an interdict against it, however, failed in January when the court ruled in favour of the publication of the results.

The DBE maintains that this order is still valid, and it argues that it has no other choice but to oppose the IR’s directive to withhold publication.

However, the case in January only dealt with the interdict and not the merits of the case.

In this week’s legal challenge, three applications in this regard have been joined. This includes whether the IR’s directive that the results may not be published is valid or not.