A pupil testified that they had collectively decided to tell lies about the teacher.
The Labour Court in Cape Town has dismissed the Western Cape Education Department’s application to review an arbitration award that reinstated a teacher who was dismissed for misconduct in 2020.
This comes after pupils confessed to lying about her conduct, which led to her being fired in the first place.
Acting Judge V Barthus ruled on 4 October 2025 that the department must pay costs to Lee-Ann Liezel Snyders, following what the court described as litigation that should have received more consideration before being brought.
The department had sought to set aside an arbitration award delivered on 7 June 2021.
According to court records, Snyders had been employed at Primrose Park Primary School since 2013. She was dismissed on 9 March 2020.
She was found guilty of 14 out of 17 charges at a disciplinary inquiry. The charges included improper comments and insults directed at pupils, physical punishment and name-calling.
Toxic rivalry between classes
The charges against Snyders, who taught Grade 5B, were based on complaints raised by pupils in Grade 5A, taught by Ms Abrahams.
The department did not call Abrahams as a witness. The court heard that it was known that there was a toxic rivalry between classes 5A and 5B.
The principal at the time, Mr Ward, testified that the rivalry existed between both the children and the teachers.
“According to the arbitrator’s assessment of the evidence, the toxic rivalry which was referenced throughout the arbitration hearing underscores the charges against the Snyders.”
ALSO READ: Sadtu, education dept slammed over GBV inaction
Department’s grounds for review rejected
The department challenged the arbitrator L.O Martin’s decision, alleging he misevaluated evidence, committed errors in law and demonstrated bias against pupils.
The first criticism related to the arbitrator dealing with charges collectively instead of individually, which Ms Nyman, representing the department, labelled a gross procedural irregularity.
Barthus found that while charges were not dealt with separately, the arbitrator addressed all of them.
“It is the form rather than the substance which is being attacked in this instance,” the court stated. “This cannot rationally be construed as a procedural irregularity by any stretch of the imagination.”
The department claimed the arbitrator showed bias by inferring “that there was a propensity of the learners for not telling the truth”.
However, Barthus disagreed. “An arbitrator is permitted to draw inferences where such inferences are based on the conspectus of evidence before him,” the court stated. “No bias was demonstrated by the inference drawn.”
Conspiracy to oust teacher revealed
A pupil, referred to as Learner B, testified that Snyders was a nice teacher and kind to children.
This pupil confessed to lying at the disciplinary hearing because of peer pressure.
“The children went after each other,” she testified. She confirmed that Abrahams would ask them if they had complaints about Snyders, which Abrahams would write down and submit to Ward.
Learner B testified that the group of pupils collectively decided to tell lies about Snyders.
“The stuff we did all in Ms Snyder’s class and then how like what happened in her class, then we all wrote it down, but nothing happened in her class, that was all lies that the children made up,” she testified.
She explained the lies were fabricated to get Snyders kicked out of the school.
Martin found: “Most of the evidence led at this arbitration points in fact to fabrications made in meetings of the group of learners making the allegations against the applicant.”
Furthermore, Martin accepted Learner B’s evidence because it was corroborated by evidence of group discussions about complaints against Snyders.
Learner B’s mother testified she had two children in Snyders’s class and would have dealt with her daughter had she known about the lies.
ALSO READ: KES headmaster says more school time is solution to South Africa’s school violence
Critical findings and legal test
Martin made important findings about the pupils’ conduct.
“When considering the testimony of Ward in particular as to the attitudes of the learners, particularly their penchant for defiance of the teachers and secondly their socio-economic circumstances, and thirdly the behavioural problems that they presented, I am satisfied to find on conspectus of all the evidence presented at the arbitration that it is unlikely that the applicant had conducted herself generally in the manner alleged,” the arbitrator stated.
The review of arbitration awards is governed by section 145 of the Labour Relations Act. The test is whether the decision reached is one that a reasonable decision maker could not reach.
The Labour Appeal Court held that gross irregularity allegations do not automatically lead to setting aside an award.
“The enquiry is not confined to whether the arbitrator misconceived the nature of the proceedings, but extends to whether the result was unreasonable,” the appeal court stated.
Nyman asserted there were errors in law in the award. Judge Barthus disagreed.
“What the award demonstrates is that the arbitrator fully considered all the evidence and made findings on credibility, reliability and the probabilities,” the judge found. “On the strength of the evidence placed before the arbitrator, his decision falls within the band of reasonableness and, as such, I am constrained to uphold the award without interference.”
Costs awarded
Barthus concluded that Snyders could not be expected to endure the costs of defending the litigation, where more thought should have been applied by the department.
“The interests of justice will be best served by awarding a cost order in favour of the first respondent at the end of what has been a protracted legal process,” the judge stated.
The court dismissed the review application and ordered the department to pay Snyders’s costs.
READ NEXT: GDE extended school nutrition programme under strain amid socio-economic pressures
