We have even seen a situation where a legal adviser of the one of the provincial Education Departments has tried to argue that  a divorce order amounts to an automatic exemption in terms of Regulation 4(3)(c) of the Regulations Relating To Exemption Of Parents From Payment Of School Fees In Schools No. R1052 of 2006.

Our opinion is that that the divorce order is not binding on third parties but only between the divorcing parties, unless such third party have been cited in the legal proceedings  . The legal authority upon which we rely is the Supreme Court of Appeal decision of OLD MUTUAL LIFE ASSURANCE CO (SA) LTD AND ANOTHER v SWEMMER 2004 (5) SA 373 (SCA), which at 24 the court held that , "As the appellants were not parties to the proceedings in which this order was made, the order was a nullity as  far as they were concerned and they could legitimately disregard it without having it set aside."

Moreover the South African Schools Act wide definition of parent in terms of Section 1 is designed to ensure that public schools do not become embroiled in disputes between feuding parents and that both jointly and severally liable for the schools fees. In this regard we refer to the Supreme Court of Appeal authority of FISH HOEK PRIMARY SCHOOL v GW 2010 (2) SA 141 (SCA) in which the court held at 14:

" Moreover, an interpretation that burdens both parents with responsibility for school fees is consistent with the injunction in s 28(2) of the Constitution that 'a child's best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning the child'. It unquestionably is in the best interests of a child that a non-custodian parent, who is unwilling, yet has the means, to pay his child's school fees, should be made to do so, if necessary by the injunction of an order of a competent court.

Were that not to be so, the custodian parent would solely be saddled with that responsibility. And whilst a custodian parent, if she has paid more than her pro rata share towards the child's support, may in law be entitled to recover the excess from the non-custodian parent, the reality is that her right to recover may for all practical purposes prove to be illusory.

Further, the sad truth is that many custodian parents are simply unable to pay or have been exempt from paying due to poverty. Were the school not to have the right to recover school fees from the non-custodian parent in those circumstances, it will either have to shoulder that loss or mulct other parents with additional charges. In either event it would be acting to the detriment of other learners.

By including a further category of persons to those ordinarily contemplated by the word 'parent', it is  plain that the legislature cast the net as widely as it could to afford the school and in turn the learner the maximum possible protection. To interpret the word restrictively as the High Court did can hardly be reconciled with the paramountcy that must be afforded to the best interests of the child principle."

As to the Education Departments who has tried to argue that  a divorce order amounts to an automatic exemption in terms of Regulation 4(3)(c) of the Exemption Regulations. The divorce order is not an court order exempting any party from payment of school fees or showing evidence of qualification for exemption but an order that inter alia arranges financial responsibility between the parties.

The court  in no ways assess the ability of the party or parties to pay school fees and in many cases divorce orders are merely the product of settlement agreements between the parents. If this submission were true then parents could effectively exempt one party by way of a divorce settlement agreement, which is patently legally untenable and not in accordance with the reasoning of the Fishhoek case.