NGO Appeals Judgment Against Lagos Tax Clearance For Free Education

A non-governmental organisation, ISH-61 Human Rights and Social Justice Initiative has urged the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal to set aside the decision of the State High Court dismissing its suit challenging the policy of the Lagos State government which makes tax payment or clearance a condition for children to access public primary and public junior secondary schools in the state.

Justice Gbadebo Oshoala of the lower court had struck out the suit for lack of jurisdiction.

Oshoala had also held that the suit did not disclose a reasonable cause of action against the state government, and that the right to education is not justiciable.

The incorporated trustees of ISH-61 filed the notice of appeal through their lawyers, Oluwatosin Adegun and Oluyemi Fajuyitan for and on behalf of disadvantaged children in Lagos.

The Court of Appeal is however yet to fix a date for the hearing of the appeal.

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The group had filed the suit against the Lagos State government, and three others (in Suit No. ID/14042MFHR/22) for the enforcement of the rights of children in Lagos to free and compulsory basic education in the state owned schools.

The applicant insisted that the state government has the responsibility to provide for free and compulsory basic education up to the junior secondary school level in the State especially for disadvantaged children in the state.

Apart from the Lagos State government, they listed the state’s commissioner for education, the State’s Universal Basic Education Board and the attorney-general and commissioner for justice as respondents in the suit.

The applicants asked the court for a declaration that by Sections 39(1), Section 14(1) Child’s Rights Law of Lagos State 2007, Sections 13(1), 14 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Law, 2005, Article 11(1), (3) (a), (d) and (e) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, every child in Lagos State has the right to free and compulsory basic education irrespective of economic and/or tax compliant status of his/her parents/guardians.