SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 998, 17 April 1891, Page 35

SCHOOL COMMITTEE ELECTIONS.

A LEGAL OPINION. • In consequence of certain questions affecting the qualifications of candidates and electors under the Education Act, 1877, and the School Committee Election Act, 1890, having been raised during the past year, the Board has issued, for the information . and . guidance of school committees, the following opinionfrom their solicitors on the point raised:— 1. 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 withir the definition of that term for the purpose of the Act ? And is he or she entitled to a vote for, and eligible for election od, the School Committee of such district ? 2. Is a personwho resides within any school district who is 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 committees ? The opinion of Messrs Brandon, Hislop and Brandon is as follows :—Section 58 of the principal Act provides that “In every school district constituted under this Act. there shall be a school committee consisting of seven householders resident within the school district, to be elected as hereinafter provided.” This qualification of a householder namely, residence within the school dis trict, has not been affected by the School Committees Election Act, 1890, and consequently no person resident outside a school district is eligible as a committeeman. It is clear that no owner, lessee, or tenant of a dwellinghouse outside a school district is eligible as an elector in respect 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 within Buch district,” the case is not quite so clear. If the person and the child are both resident within the school district, he is undoubtedly Sualified both to vote and to be elected. f resident without the district, his right to vote will depend on the question whether the child in respect to whom he claims a qualification has a legal right to attend the school. If the child is resident in the school district the parents, guardian, or other person having the custody of such child is qualified, whether residing in the school district or not, but if the child Jives out of the school

district, we are of opinion that the parent or guardian or other persons as aforesaid is not qualified to vote. Section 89 of the principal Act prescribes the school at which children are to attend, i.e., a public school in the Bchool district in which such child residos, 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 Act (see sections 58, 60, G 3, &c.), namely, that the management of schools should 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 dis trict within which his permanent dwellinghouse is situated.