Guidance for universities and other academic institutions
When a student urgently asks a court to let them continue attending classes while challenging an academic exclusion, the legal question is not simply whether the consequences for the student are serious. It is whether the student still has an enforceable right capable of interim protection, and whether the court should step into the academic space of a university before the review has been decided.
A recent Western Cape High Court judgment provides useful guidance on both points. In Binedell v Stellenbosch University and Another, the court refused an application by a former student who sought interim relief to continue his studies pending a review of the University’s decision to exclude him academically. In doing so, the court reaffirmed that a student’s former status does not in itself create a continuing right to study and that courts will be slow to interfere with the academic decisions of a semi-autonomous institution
