SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

Inangahua Times, Volume XVI, Issue 20225, 17 April 1891, Page 4

SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

» A LEGAL OPINION. (N.Z. Tiroes.) In consequence of certain questions affecting the qualification of candidates and electors under the Education Act, 1877, and the School Committee Election Act, 1890, having been raised during the past y :;\r, the Board has issued, for the information and guidance of school committees, the following opinion from their solicitors on the point raised :— ]. Is the parent or guardian or other person who has the custody of any child attending any State school within a district in which '"he is not resident, a householder within the definition of that term for the purpose of the Act I And whe or she entitled to a vote for, iipd eligible for election on, the School 1 < "!i>miuiUt'e of such diatricr ; 2 Th v f'tra"n who resides within imy rjhei'l district who ib not the parent or guardian, or has not the actual custody of any child attending a State School within the district entitled to vote or eligible for election on the school committee for such district ? 3 Is a person who rents a house, and who, in consequence of his work being out of the district, occupies the house at intervals, as from Saturday to Monday, a householder (the house being shut up for the rest of the week) eligible to vote or be a candidate at the election of school committee 1 The opinion of Messrs Brandon, Hislnp and Brandon is as follows :— Section 58 of the principal Act provides that "In every achool district . constituted under this act there shall be a school committee consisting of seven house* holders resident within the Bchool district, to be eleoted as hereinafter pro* vided." This qualification of a householder namely, residence within the school district, has not been affected by the School Committees Election Act, 1890, and consequently no person resident outside a achool district is eligible as a committeemau. It is clear that no owner, lessee, or tenant of a dwellinghouse out* side a school district is eligible as an elector in rejpect of that qualification only. In the case of a person not being the owner, lessee, or tenant of a dwellinghouse, but being the " parent or guardian or person having the actual custody of any child attending any State School situated witnin such district," the case is not quite so clear. If the person and the child are both resident within the Bchool district, he is undoubtedly qualified both to vote and to be elected. If resident without the district, his right to vote will depend on the quostion whether the child in respect to whom he claims a aualification, has a legal right to attend le school. If the child is resident in a Bohool diatriot the parents, guardian, or person having the custody of suoh child U qualified, whether residing in the achool district or not, but if the child lives out of the school district, we are of opinion that the parent or guardian or other /person as aforesaid .is not to vote. Sectionß9"of the principal Act prescribes the school at which children are to attend, i.e., a public school in the school district in which such child resides, provided that there is a public school within two miles of the child's residence, measured by the nearest road. We are confirmed in these views by what is the clear intention of the aot (see sections 58, 60, 63, &c), namely, that the management of schools Bhould be local, and that each school district should be so constituted as to supply the wants of the locality comprised in it. • As regards the third question, we have no doubt that the temporary absence during the week does not deprive the person of his right to vote as a householder for the school district within which his permanent dwelling house is shunted.