MARRIED WOMEN TEACHERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 August 1931, Page 5

MARRIED WOMEN TEACHERS

IMPORTANT TEST CASE BOARD HAS NOT POWER TO DISMISS. SUPREME COURT DECISION (By Telegraph—Press Association) AUCKLAND, This Day. Judgment in favour of the marrifed woman teacher and against the Auckland Education Board was given by Mr Justice Herdman to-day in an important test case . The hoard had asked the Court to decide whether a section of the Finance Act 1931 empowered the Board to dismiss any teacher who was a married woman. Defendant contended that the Act empowered the Board onlv to refuse employment in future to married women. The Judge said that to his mind it was plain beyond all question that the Legislature’s object was to define the board’s powers in relation to the appointment of teachers. The subject ms* ter of sub-section 6 was the making of a contract of employment, not its termination. If power to refuse to employ a female married teacher impliedly existed before, it had now been expressly given. He was satisfied that the new proviso concerned appointments alone and had nothing to do with dismissals. The proviso was not a separate enactment and must be considered in relation to the whole of the Education Acts. The construction he placed upon it involved no absurdity and the purpose of it was unmistakeable