Unitec Welcomes Urgent Hearing Of High Court Case

2 February 2005

Unitec Welcomes Urgent Hearing Of High Court Case

The High Court is to fast-track the case of Unitec against the Government with an urgent hearing set down for 2-3 June.

"We are very grateful for an urgent fixture and hope this situation can be resolved once and for all," said Unitec CEO Dr John Webster. "We will ask the Court for an order compelling the Minister to perform his statutory duty and make a decision on our university status application by 1 July 2005. Hopefully this can finally provide us with certainty.

"We can only hope that the Government will not fast-track the retrospective Bill detrimentally affecting Unitec's application, prior to 1 July."

Unitec lodged papers in the High Court at Wellington on 21 January against the Minister of Education and NZQA over the five-year delay in determining its application for university status, and illegally suspending that application. The June hearing will determine illegality and whether there has been a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

ENDS

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