South Africa's Information Regulator's bid to prevent the publication of matric results in newspapers was dismissed by the Pretoria High Court. The court ruled the matter was not urgent, as the regulator had waited three years to take action.
Pretoria High Court judge Ronel Tolmay has removed the Information Regulator ’s urgent application to stop publication of matric results in the country’s newspapers from the court roll, finding that the matter is not urgent. This came after she heard arguments about its urgency on Wednesday, 8 January 2025, after which she struck the application off the roll, with costs.
Tolmay said the matter wasn’t urgent as the Information Regulator waited three years to pursue the action after the Gauteng High Court. The Information Regulator applied to the High Court after it served the Department of Basic Education (DBE) with an enforcement notice in November 2024. The watchdog served the notice on the basis that the publication of matric results in the country’s newspapers breached “the conditions for the lawful processing of personal information” under the Protection of Personal Information (Popi) Act. The enforcement notice instructed the DBE to commit to not publishing the 2024 matric results in newspapers and instead publish results via mechanisms compliant with Popia within 31 days. It approached the courts after the DBE failed to do so and slapped the department with a R5-million fine for failing to comply. The DBE subsequently appealed the decision, suspending the directive that instructed it not to publish the results. However, Information Regulator chair Pansy Tlakula argued that the appeal was too late, given the 31 days specified in the enforcement notice. DBE director-general Hubert Mweli said in court papers that the publication of matric results in newspapers provided learners with the satisfaction of anonymously He added that matric learners have never complained about the publishing of their results in newspapers infringing on their privacy. The anonymity comes from the fact that only matric exam numbers are published in newspapers, meaning only learners who disclosed their exam numbers can be identified
Matric Results Information Regulator Popia Act High Court Publication
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