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Testing positive for drug use at school turned into a horror story for four learners, who were channelled into the criminal justice system by their school and detained for months under ‘compulsory residence orders’ at child and youth care facilities. This occurred even though the referral of children to the criminal justice system following a school-administered drug test is explicitly prohibited by legislation. S v L M & Others draws startling attention to the failure of school officials, prosecutors and magistrates to comply with legislation, and the devastating impacts that a direct ‘school-to-prison’ pipeline can have on children. The case also raises red flags around broader punitive and exclusionary school disciplinary mechanisms, which – even where lawful – may also adversely affect children and potentially contribute to school-to-prison pathways in South Africa. We argue that S v L M highlights the need for restorative and preventative approaches to school discipline, which can transform not only learners and schools but society more broadly.

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Whether executive action attracts a duty to consult has been contested judicial terrain. In this article, we aim to contribute to the development of a principled approach to requiring consultation in executive decision-making. We grapple with the distinction between procedural fairness as a requirement of just administrative action and procedural rationality as a requirement of the principle of legality. We then move beyond these labels by engaging with the values underlying the Constitution's vision of participatory democracy. Despite contradictions in the case law, we suggest that the developing requirement of "procedural rationality" as a basis for a duty to consult offers fertile ground for advancing the values of accountability, responsiveness, and openness in executive decision-making. We therefore encourage recognition of participatory democracy as the normative framework within which the rationality of executive decision-making should be substantively assessed. Finally, we demonstrate that links between participatory democracy, a duty to consult, and executive decision-making have some grounding in existing case law, which, we argue, can be further developed.