Pretoria Girls High – an uphill battle in the courts: Richard Wilkinson

Key topics:Pretoria Girls saga: WhatsApp claims led to years-long legal battle.Principal Erasmus guilty of minor charge; fighting final warning appeal.School seeks Mdladlamba report release amid court bias concerns..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..By Richard Wilkinson.Unbelievably, the Battle for Pretoria High School for Girls is now entering its third calendar year.The saga began in July 2024, when a group of twelve white Matric girls were accused of sharing racist messages in a WhatsApp group. The messages contained nothing racist at all; they merely reflected the girls’ frustration at what they described as persistent race baiting at the school. After a high profile disciplinary hearing, all twelve pupils were acquitted on every charge.Incensed by this outcome, the Gauteng Department of Education appointed a lawyer named Mr Mdladlamba to investigate what it alleged was a “culture of racism” at Pretoria Girls. After three months of interviews and investigations, Mr Mdladlamba presented a summary of his findings to the media, yet he refused to release the report itself for public scrutiny.On the back of this report, the school’s principal, Mrs Erasmus, was charged with three counts of serious misconduct. The first count related to her handling of the WhatsApp group. The second count concerned a procedural technicality relating to the appointment of the school’s finance manager. Mrs Erasmus was cleared in respect of both charges – with the latter charge being dismissed on appeal..Read more:.Update on the Pretoria Girls crowdfunding initiative: Richard Wilkinson.The third and final count – on which Mrs Erasmus was found guilty of serious misconduct and which was upheld on appeal – relates to her retired husband volunteering to provide advice (for no remuneration) regarding the school’s rose garden. In March 2024, as part of this work (and with the knowledge and consent of the School Governing Body), Mr Erasmus signed out a vehicle belonging to the School Governing Body in order to collect items for use in the school gardens. The department alleges that this constituted unauthorised use of school property. The sanction applied to Mrs Erasmus was initially three months suspension without pay. On appeal, this suspension was reduced to one month suspension without pay, which Mrs Erasmus served in October 2025.What any of these clearly frivolous charges have to do with a “culture of racism” at the school remains a complete mystery. A deep and sincere thank youDuring this period, a crowdfunding campaign was established, and I am pleased to report that 182 donors contributed a total of R201,096 in support of teachers being unfairly treated. As is explained further below, the remaining funds will either be applied towards litigation against the Gauteng Department of Education or will be donated to the school for its general benefit.I have tried to make personal contact with each individual donor. As donations could be made anonymously, it has not been possible to identify every contributor with certainty. If you have not received a message from me, please accept this as my sincere thanks for your contribution.Nevertheless, the official record still reflects that Mrs Erasmus was found guilty of serious misconduct and – crucially – that, following her appeal, she has been placed on a final written warning. This means that her position at the school remains far from secure. This finding is plainly unacceptable, and Mrs Erasmus has therefore taken steps to clear her name, as explained in greater detail below. The long, hard battle for transparency, fairness and justiceCentral to this entire matter is securing the release of Mr Mdladlamba’s report, which was relied upon to indict Mrs Erasmus and other members of staff. I regret to report that the school’s recent interactions with the courts have been dispiriting. It is therefore necessary to set out, in some detail, what has transpired, as how the school has been dealt with in the courts raises serious concerns. Freedom of information requestGauteng Education MEC Matome Chiloane initially indicated that his department would make the report available to implicated individuals. The School Governing Body subsequently requested a copy of Mr Mdladlamba’s report from the Gauteng Department of Education.Inexplicably, the Department directed the School Governing Body to submit a formal freedom of information request in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). The School Governing Body duly complied, only for the request to be refused on spurious and plainly irrational grounds. Urgent application in the Gauteng High CourtLed by the irrepressible Advocate John Mullins SC, the School Governing Body launched urgent legal proceedings in December 2024 to compel the Department to release the report. The matter was allocated to Judge Madlenkosi Motha in the Gauteng High Court. The proceedings were observed by Dr Willem Gravett, a legal academic who subsequently published a highly critical account of the case. According to Dr Gravett, Judge Motha made a series of remarks which strongly suggested that he would not be approaching the matter with an open mind:“At the outset of the hearing on 10 December 2024, and without having heard either counsel on the matter, Judge Motha made gratuitous and unsolicited remarks that veered far from the legal issues and ventured into ideological commentary. Referring to the matter as emblematic of racial divides in South Africa, he asserted that “racism is a sensitive topic and at the centre of what is happening today,” framing the SGB’s case as part of a broader socio-political agenda rather than a straightforward legal dispute. These comments betray Judge Motha’s belief, aligned with Critical Race Theory, that racism is the normal state of affairs in society – pervasive, immutable, and lurking everywhere and always just beneath the surface. Judge Motha further referred to the report by the Thabo Mbeki Foundation regarding the same matter, stating dismissively that “the less said about it, the better.” He subsequently added that it was crucial to talk about the issue of race, and he suggested that the former president seemed to want to “sweep it under the rug.” These claims are patently false. Judge Motha’s most alarming remarks came on the topic of reconciliation. He asserted that ‘reconciliation is a two-way process. Thus far, it’s been a one-way process… It is only black children who are building this non-racialism.’ Judge Motha’s comments were not only extraneous to the application, but demonstrated a clear prejudgment of the case and conveyed, in no uncertain terms, the objective impression of bias against the SGB... The consequences of Judge Motha’s approach are profound. South Africa’s judiciary has long been a cornerstone of our democracy, a bulwark against the abuses of power and a guarantor of individual rights. However, the judiciary’s legitimacy depends on its perceived impartiality. Judge Motha’s conduct risks transforming the Bench into a platform for political activism, undermining the legitimacy of the judiciary and eroding the public’s trust in the courts.”[1]Dr Gravett has also written about previous cases over which Judge Motha has presided. According to Dr Gravett, Judge Motha “shrouded himself in the rhetoric of Critical Race Theory, championing its polarising principles under the guise of judicial activism. In that case, Judge Motha forsook neutrality and objectivity, adopting as his premise that the foundational organising principle of society ‘is entrenched systemic racism’ engineered by white people to subjugate and marginalise black people.” In Dr Gravett’s assessment, “Judge Motha has shown himself to be more an ideologue than an adjudicator, a partisan figure rather than a paragon of judicial neutrality.”As a result of Judge Motha’s opening remarks, Advocate Mullins SC and his colleagues were left with no option but to remove the matter from the urgent roll. Application in the Gauteng High CourtThe School Governing Body returned to the Gauteng High Court on 30 October 2025. Represented by Advocate Helen Fourie SC and Advocate CK van Niekerk, who were instructed by Savage, Jooste & Adams, the School Governing Body sought an order under Rule 30A, read with Rule 53 of the Uniform Rules of Court, compelling the Gauteng MEC for Education to produce Mr Mdladlamba’s report together with all related correspondence and supporting material.Rule 53 regulates the procedure to be followed in review proceedings and enables litigants to challenge government decisions by requiring the relevant authority to produce the record of decision-making. The School Governing Body has taken the following three decisions of the Gauteng MEC for Education and the Gauteng Department of Education on review:the decision to institute an investigation into an alleged “culture of racism” at Pretoria Girls;the contents of Mr Mdladlamba’s report; andthe decision of the Head of Department of the Gauteng Department of Education to implement Mr Mdladlamba’s report.It follows that the School Governing Body sought disclosure of Mr Mdladlamba’s report as part of the review record.On 11 November 2025, Judge Moshoana delivered judgment against the School Governing Body. In essence, he held that Mr Mdladlamba’s report constituted a decision in itself, rather than proceedings preceding a decision. He stated that:“Rule 53(1)(b) applies to the material that precedes the impugned decision. The impugned decision comes into being after the record of proceedings came into existence. To think that the Report (decision) is part of the record of proceedings is like putting the cart before the horses.”With respect, this reasoning is difficult to follow. Administrative review concerns both process and decision. Rule 53 expressly provides that an applicant is entitled to the record of “the procedure or decision”, and the courts have repeatedly emphasised the obligation to produce the “record of the decision”. Moreover, Judge Moshoana’s reasoning is difficult to reconcile with numerous reported cases in which the record of a reviewed decision was ordered to be produced under Rule 53.The effect of the judgment is, with respect, bizarre. If it were to stand, it would require both the court and the school to review a decision without access to the very decision under review. This is an unheard-of outcome, wholly at odds with the extensive body of case law that emphasises a litigant’s entitlement to the full record precisely in order to give meaningful effect to the right of review.Against the backdrop of the failed PAIA application and the withdrawn urgent application, Judge Moshoana accused the School Governing Body of forum shopping and of “playing musical chairs with the law simply for its convenience”. He characterised the application as “an abuse of court processes and subversive in nature”, and ultimately directed the School Governing Body to pursue its remedies under PAIA.However, according to legal experts, there is extensive precedent for Rule 53 applications being successfully pursued in circumstances where a PAIA request was, at least in theory, available. In none of those cases was PAIA even engaged, precisely because once litigation is instituted it takes precedence over PAIA proceedings. Numerous authorities – including, in fact, the very case cited by Judge Moshoana in this regard – as well as PAIA itself, make clear that PAIA is not intended to be used in place of court processes, which provide adequate remedies, including, ironically, through Rule 53.Judge Moshoana also relied on precedent drawn from Helen Suzman v Judicial Service Commission, but appears to have overlooked that the passage he cited comes from the minority judgment, which was expressly rejected by the majority of the court. Application for leave to appealDissatisfied with this ruling, Pretoria Girls’ legal team promptly applied to Judge Moshoana for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal. On 15 December 2025, Judge Moshoana dismissed the application, holding that the appeal had no reasonable prospects of success. In his view, the School Governing Body had failed to demonstrate any errors of fact or law, and its application amounted to no more than a re-argument of the dismissed case. Petition to the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal Pretoria Girls is not taking this setback lying down. The School Governing Body unanimously resolved to petition the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein for leave to appeal and duly filed that application on 23 December 2025. If leave to appeal is granted, the matter is expected to be heard towards the end of 2026. One front in a broader legal battle In addition to the litigation aimed at securing the release of the Mdladlamba report, Advocate Mullins SC and his team, together with Mrs Erasmus’ union representatives, have been working tirelessly on three further fronts.The first legal front, managed by the Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie, is to clear Mrs Erasmus before the Education Labour Relations Council (“ELRC”). This has become a well-trodden path for teachers who have been mistreated by the Gauteng Department of Education. By way of example, one need only consider the absurd case of Anneke Smit, a teacher at a school in Pretoria West, who was dismissed for racism after she said the word “polisiemannetjie” in class – a word that was deliberately misconstrued as meaning “police monkey” (yes, seriously). [2].Read more:.Richard Wilkinson: Calls grow for reinstatement of suspended Pretoria Girls’ principal.The second legal front is a defamation claim. There are at least twenty journalists, government officials and activists who could potentially be cited in this regard, but perhaps the most egregious example is Edwin Naidu, the editor of Inside Education. On 18 November 2024, Mr Naidu wrote the following in his publication:“The episode of Ms Erasmus is just one recent example of racism that continues to rear its ugly head. But apart from putting her in the dock and making an example of the racism that exists in society, there is nothing done to lance the racism boil. How many other principals like Ms Erasmus continue to escape without having their racism addressed?”I am pleased to report that Mrs Erasmus has instituted legal proceedings against Mr Naidu and that mandatory pre-trial mediation is currently underway. Mrs Erasmus is seeking damages of R 500,000 from Mr Naidu and Inside Education.The third legal front involves contemplated action against officials of the Gauteng Department of Education. In December 2024, legal representatives acting on behalf of the twelve wrongly accused girls served preliminary legal notices on the Gauteng MEC for Education, as well as on three officials – Mr Andries Nkadimeng, Mr Billy Kgomo and Mr Steve Mabona.One of the difficulties with litigation in South Africa is that an unsuccessful party is ordinarily required to pay the opposing parties’ costs. Given the lack of favour the School Governing Body has encountered in the Gauteng High Court, the twelve wrongly accused girls cannot be confident of success, irrespective of the strength of their case. It will therefore be necessary to secure the support of a benefactor willing to underwrite the litigation through to the level of the Supreme Court of Appeal. (If you are reading this and are willing and able to provide such support, please do get in touch.)Should litigation not materialise, the remaining funds raised will be donated to the school, so that future generations of South African children – black, brown and white – may continue to benefit from the world-class education it provides.Whatever the outcome, I remain confident that Mrs Erasmus and Pretoria Girls will ultimately prevail. If they do, it will not be because of any assistance from the Gauteng High Court, but rather due to the resilience of the original twelve Matric girls, the steadfastness of Mrs Erasmus and the School Governing Body, and, without doubt, due to the tenacity, skill and generosity of Advocate Mullins SC and his colleagues who have worked throughout this matter on a no-fee basis.References [1] https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/tilting-at-windmills--judge-mothas-quixotic-quest-[2] https://www.politicsweb.co.za/documents/victory-for-teacher-accused-of-racism--solidarity

Pretoria Girls High – an uphill battle in the courts: Richard Wilkinson

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