Supreme Court lifts school ban on dreadlocks

Supreme Court lifts school ban on dreadlocks

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By Lebo Nkatazo

ZIMBABWE’S Supreme Court on Wednesday passed a landmark ruling barring school authorities from expelling deadlocked students from learning institutions on grounds of their hairstyles.

Seven-year-old Glen Norah boy, Farai Benjamin Dzvova, 7, who comes from a Rastafarian family, was barred from Ruvheneko government primary school on account of his hairstyle last year, forcing his father to launch a constitutional appeal on his behalf.

In court papers the boy’s family said his religious freedom was being infringed, while the education authorities said a short hair rule has nothing to do with religion but was simply a school standard applicable to all pupils.

Last year the High Court granted the boy a temporary order to attend school pending the outcome of the Supteme Court case.

Human rights lawyer Tafadzwa Mugabe on Wednesday confirmed that the boy had won his case in the country’s highest court.

“I can confirm that the Supreme Court today granted the final order,” he said.

The lawyer said the effect of the judgment was to bar the Minister of Education Aeneas Chigwedere and the Ruveneko school headmaster from discriminating against the boy or bar him from school on grounds of his dreadlocks.

A copy of the judgment was not immediately available when New Zimbabwe.com enquired Wednesday.

Appearing in court for Chigwedere, Revai Sweto-Mukuruba of the Civil Division of the Attorney General's Office had said it had never been contended that Rastafarianism was a religion that is protected under the Constitution.

She argued that in terms of the Education Act, the minister was conferred with powers to make regulations, which provide for discipline in schools and the exercise of the disciplinary powers over pupils attending schools.

These include powers to administer corporal punishment, and the suspension and expulsion of pupils in respect of their attendance and conduct in schools.

The regulations, Sweto-Mukuruba said, authorised schools to set standards to be enforced at their respective schools.

She said the requirement to keep short hair was a school standard which is not a religious instruction.

"Since schools cater for pupils from different religious beliefs and practices, there is need for a school standard which applies to all pupils uniformly," she said, urging the court to dismiss the constitutional case.
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