The Supreme Court held yesterday that a District Court judge could convict or acquit a Kerry mother accused of not providing "a suitable elementary education" for her children.
Judge Mary O'Halloran had decided at Listowel Court in 1997 that Mrs Christine Best, of Stacks Mountain, Kilflynn, Co Kerry, was not giving suitable elementary education to two boys as required by the State's primary school curriculum.
The Supreme Court has upheld an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions against a finding of Mr Justice Geoghegan in the High Court a year ago.
Mrs Justice Denham in her judgment said that in her view the minimum standard of education required by legislation was not necessarily equivalent to the primary school curriculum.
The children's mother, Mrs Best, claimed she had a constitutional right to educate her children at home. She was charged under the School Attendance Act with keeping her children out of Cromclough National School between December 1996 and June 1997.
Judge O'Halloran found Niall (then aged 12) and William (then aged 10) were not in receipt of suitable elementary education but reserved her decision to convict until she got the High Court's opinion.
She asked for the court's help in view of the fact that the Oireachtas had never defined in legislation what constituted "suitable elementary education".
Mr Justice Geoghegan in the High Court held that in the absence of legislative definition, a District Court judge hearing evidence that a parent was doing his or her best to educate a child at home and taking into account the moral and social aspects of education as well as the intellectual, should be very slow to find the parent guilty of an offence.
The High Court held that on the facts of the Best case the District Court judge would not be entitled to form a view beyond a reasonable doubt that a suitable elementary education was not being provided by the Bests.
But overturning the finding of Mr Justice Geoghegan, Mrs Justice Denham said a district judge should have expert evidence as to suitable elementary education. The district judge should make findings of fact and decide whether the education the children was receiving was suitable elementary education.
Mrs Justice Denham said that a district judge should, while recognising the parental and family rights, at the same time acknowledge the child's constitutional rights and the duty of the State as guardian of the common good.
She said the fact that the legislature had not defined what constituted a suitable elementary education did not prevent the district judge from pronouncing a formal order of conviction or acquittal as the case might be.
Mr Justice Lynch said the onus rested on Mrs Best to establish that the education provided in the home was suitable elementary education.
Mr Justice Barron said that in general it seemed that the intellectual portion of the constitutional requirement was more likely to be satisfied at a school and it seemed the moral and social requirements were more likely to be satisfied at home.