Judge rules in UCT's favour

2005-03-04 18:16

Cape Town - An Indian couple on Friday lost the first round of their court battle against the University of Cape Town's admissions policy.

Judge Rosheni Allie declined to make an order that their 17-year-old daughter be provisionally admitted to study medicine, pending a full judicial review of the policy.

The girl is studying for a BSc at the university.

Judge Allie said: "In the absence of any exceptional circumstance warranting an interference with the decision of the university, this court will not substitute its decision for that of the university."

The parents, who could not be named because their daughter was still a minor, said in affidavits the girl was denied admission to the medical school this year, despite having better marks than other students who were admitted.

'The policy is unlawful'

They claimed UCT seemed to regard pupils from former coloureds-only and blacks-only schools as "educationally disadvantaged", but those from former Indians-only schools as not disadvantaged.

"This policy was unlawful, unconstitutional and unreasonable."

Judge Allie said both sides agreed that the policy appeared to be discriminatory, but they differed on whether the discrimination was reasonable, justifiable and necessary to redress historical inequalities.

What was needed was proof that the girl's right to equality was being unlawfully infringed, and this was lacking in the affidavit.

The family's advocate, Charles Abrahams, said the ruling was disappointing.

'Privileged education backgrounds'

He said: "We feel that the judgment, in a sense, does not deal with the issue of discrimination between African, coloured and Indian people who have all attained privileged educational backgrounds.

"Africans and coloureds are dealt with on a different basis. We feel that the judgment is disappointing in that respect."

A decision on whether to pursue the review application would be taken after he and his clients had studied the judgment in more detail.

However, he said the application had been "an important wake-up call" for UCT to "seriously reconsider its admissions policy".

- SAPA