Submissions to the House of Keys Committee on the Isle of Man’s controversial Education Bill can now be read here. Some may not have been published at the request of respondents.
Of special interest is Allan Norman‘s incisive (and highly entertaining) submission on behalf of a group of Island home educators concerned about the ramifications of the Bill. The Solicitor-General comes in for quite a pasting.
We have previously opined that seeking to rely on the German ban on home education (originally enacted by Hitler) in order to erase the rights of a minuscule minority of citizens is not a good look for the Tynwald or the Solicitor-General; nor is it relevant in this case.
Likening the Tynwald’s tactics to ‘slinging a dead cat on the table’, Allan notes that, unlike the Wunderlich family’s unsuccessful attempt to overturn the status quo that prohibits ‘home schooling’ in Germany, home educators on the Isle of Man are making no such challenge to existing, rights-respecting arrangements; rather, it is their legislature that is plotting a coup d’état to overthrow the established educational status quo and therefore must justify its interference with citizens’ human rights.
You cannot just point to another country in Europe that does it differently, and copy them. You need to demonstrate that there is a good reason to make the change, to interfere with human rights, and that this is the least intrusive and most proportionate way of dealing with the social problem you have identified. The fact that Germany’s long-standing ban on homeschooling was upheld is a complete distraction from the very different legal issues on the Island.
Regular readers will also remember that Allan accurately predicted the outcome of the UK Supreme Court’s ‘named person’ judgment in a blistering submission to the Scottish Government on behalf of home educators in 2013.
He also visited the Isle of Man in 2016 to deliver a comprehensive human rights-focused presentation on ‘Children’s Social Services – Will we ever get it right?’
A longstanding civil liberties campaigner has meanwhile spotted glaring conflicts of interest within the House of Keys Committee membership, noting that:
“It is troubling that the Isle of Man’s close knit parliamentary system seems unable to challenge such an obvious and undemocratic conflict of interest”. Ann Corlett is a Departmental member (junior minister) and Lawrie Hooper was previously in the Department helping to set up the Bill. It’s an unbelievable situation. What are these characters going to do? Ask themselves questions?
We have home educating friends on the Isle of Man and have been closely following this latest brazen assault on their rights:
Legal opinion: Isle of Man home education proposals breach human rights (March 2019)
Manx home education proposals breach human rights, say lawyers (April 2019)
DNR for fatally flawed Manx Education Bill? (July 2020)
Manx home education proposals breach human rights, say lawyers (April 2019)
DNR for fatally flawed Manx Education Bill? (July 2020)
