It was heard in the Constitutional Court, by Chaskalson P, Langa DP, Goldstone J, Madala J, Mokgoro J, Ngcobo J, O'Regan J, Sachs J, Yacoob J and Cameron AJ, on 4 May 2000, with judgment handed down on 18 August.

The appellant averred that corporal correction was an integral part of the active Christian ethos which it sought to provide its learners and that the blanket prohibition of its use in its schools invaded individual and parental and community rights to practise religion freely.

The corporal punishment was delivered in the context of the community activity in a school; accordingly, it could only attract constitutional protection if, in terms of section 31(2), it was not inconsistent with any other provision of the Bill of Rights.

It was argued in the alternative that, if corporal punishment at the appellant's schools did not violate the Bill of Rights, its prohibition by the Act was reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society.

[12] The interest protected by section 31 was not, the court found, a statistical one, dependent on a counterbalancing of numbers, but rather a qualitative one, based on respect for diversity.

Although there may be special problems attendant on undertaking the limitations analysis in respect of religious practices, the standard to be applied was the nuanced and contextual one required by section 36, not the rigid one of strict scrutiny.

The proportionality exercise had to relate to whether the failure to accommodate the appellant's religious belief and practice by means of the exemption prayed for could be accepted as reasonable and justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, freedom and equality.

[17] The respondent had established that the prohibition of corporal punishment was part and parcel of a national program to transform the education system and bring it into line with the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

The state was also under a constitutional duty to take steps to help diminish the amount of public and private violence in society generally, and to protect all people, especially children, from maltreatment, abuse or degradation.

What they were prevented from doing was authorising teachers, acting in their name and on school premises, to fulfil what they regarded as their conscientious and biblically ordained responsibilities for the guidance of their children.

[21] The court decided, accordingly, that, when all the factors were weighed together, the scales came down firmly in favour of upholding the generality of the law in the face of the appellant's claim for a constitutionally compelled exemption.