Andalusian High Court orders regional government to review five-day suspension of student who shared teacher's photo on WhatsApp

A secondary school student in Malaga ran into one of her teachers on the seafront. During this chance encounter, she took a photo of him with her mobile phone and later shared it in a WhatsApp group with classmates. What her family considered a harmless incident, with no intention of causing harm, ended up resulting in a school sanction: five days of suspension from classes.

The matter didn't end there. The girl's mother appealed the decision to the school and, dissatisfied with the response, decided to take the matter to court. She argued that her daughter hadn't been afforded due process before being punished, that the infraction hadn't been proven, that the hearing was insufficient and that the sanction had been "disproportionate".

Ultimately, the case reached the High Court of Justice of Andalucía (TSJA), which has now confirmed that the education authorities must review the disciplinary file ex officio.

The conflict originated in April 2022. According to the court ruling the teacher involved reported the incident to the school administration after being informed by another student who had access to the WhatsApp group. The school convened a meeting with several students and one of them displayed the image. The student was identified as the one who had shared it.

The document the girl's family received summarised the incident very succinctly: "Takes a photo of a teacher and shares it." The school described the act as: "Conduct contrary to the code of conduct not included in article 20." The punishment was a five-day suspension from school.

It wasn't so much the punishment itself, but the way it was handled, that fuelled the conflict. The court of first instance had already deemed the classification of events "manifestly insufficient and even erroneous". The ruling explains that the provision cited by the school did not correctly align with the applicable regulations and that the sanction was subsequently based on references added in later reports.

The way the family were treated also weighed heavily in the decision. The ruling states that there is no record that the student or her parents knew about the punishment until a phone call made the day before the meeting at the school. There is also no record of that meeting, nor any clear documentation about what they were given or shown.

According to the court, this information suggests that the attention given to the family "may have been insufficient to ensure the effective right to a defence against a serious charge".

The Andalusian regional government appealed that initial ruling, stating that the court had overstepped its bounds because the family had filed an "extraordinary appeal for review" rather than a formal request for review. The judge had shifted the focus of the debate and ruled on a matter that no one had explicitly requested.

Now, the TSJA has rejected that argument. The court pointed out that, in administrative law, what matters is not always the name the resident gives their document, but what they are actually requesting.

That is, even though the mother called her written appeal an 'extraordinary appeal for review', what she was actually denouncing were potential grounds for the annulment of the disciplinary proceedings. Therefore, the court considers it correct that the lower court ordered the education department to initiate an ex officio review, the procedure to analyse whether a final administrative act can be null and void.

The ruling does not assess the student's actions, nor whether the sanction was necessarily invalid. It also does not automatically annul the punishment. What it does is confirm that the education department could not dismiss the complaint without properly examining the potential substantive and procedural defects. These include the classification of the conduct, the information given to the family, the prior hearing and the documentation in the case file.

The second lawsuit sought to challenge the validity of the disciplinary proceedings, and the court's decision remained within that scope. The TSJA said that the ruling "contains no more than what was requested by the parties" and dismissed the claim that it exceeded the scope of the parties' requests.

Therefore, the education department will have to review the case and process it through the proper channels, following all the required steps. Only then can a decision be made as to whether the five-day suspension for a photograph shared on WhatsApp was valid.

The regional government's appeal is dismissed. The court has ordered it to pay the costs of this second instance.

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