Could a judge end the teachers dispute?
Posted August 18, 2014 7:00 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Will school begin in September? We still don’t know, as the two sides in the dispute are apparently in talks but neither the BC Teachers’ Federation nor the province are releasing any details about the discussions.
So, considering education is a human right, according to the United Nations, is there a chance someone could bring forward a lawsuit, claiming their children’s rights are being violated by the ongoing strike and would a sympathetic judge rule in their favour?
We took that question to News1130 legal analyst Michael Shapray. He says it’s possible, but unlikely. He doubts a judge would see enough, legally-speaking, to bring an end to the strike.
“I don’t think that anybody’s going to be able to hold on to that right as a way of forcing this strike to end. There’s no constitutional right to be in school on September 2nd… when the school year is supposed to start.”
“I don’t think anybody wants to see what could happen if schools aren’t back in in September. And hopefully, it won’t go on forever, but yes, it’s going to go on until they resolve that as a labour dispute — not as a legal issue about an educational right,” adds Shapray.
Over 40,000 teachers took full-scale strike action in mid-June. The BCTF and the government returned to the bargaining table on August 8th, after over a month of stalled talks.
