Indian girl can wear nose ring to school: court

By Fakir Hassen, IANS

Johannesburg : A court in South Africa has said that a school’s refusal to allow an Indian girl to wear a nose ring violated her constitutional right to abide by her religion and culture.


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Sunali Pillay started the legal battle three years ago after the elite Durban Girls High School banned her from wearing the nose ring, which she said was part of her south Indian Tamil culture.

The 100 rand ($14) ring cost the family hundreds of thousands of rands in legal fees as they went through various courts, finally emerging victorious in the Johannesburg Constitutional Court, the highest court of the land.

Chief Justice Pius Langa Friday said that encouraging students to practice their religious and cultural beliefs in school was something to celebrate and not to be feared.

The judge ordered that Pillay could not be banned from wearing the nose ring if she was giving expression to her religious or cultural beliefs by doing so.

Ironically, Pillay will not get any benefit from the ruling, as she completed her high school education at the institution in 2006.

But the ruling will benefit many other students in similar situations, especially since the decision of the Constitutional Court is now binding on all schools.

The matter first went to the Equality Court, which ruled in favour of the school after it argued that the ring did not comply with its code in terms of which girls were not allowed to wear any kind of jewellery except a watch.

Dissatisfied, Pillay appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled in her favour, only to find the school enlisting the aid of the Constitutional Court.

However, the Constitutional Court found that rules prohibiting wearing of jewellery had the potential of direct discrimination as it allowed some students to practice their religious beliefs in school while prohibiting others.

The court accepted evidence that by wearing a nose ring, Sunali had adopted a voluntary practice of her Tamil culture that had inseparable links with the Hindu faith.

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