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Full -screen lock in students ‘mobiles is to restrict students’ rights, according to two lawyers. File image. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT
A ban on school students to use the mobile throughout the school day means that the students are prevented from organizing themselves. The wrong way to go, according to two lawyers.
The government wants to see completely mobile -free schools and recently presented an investigation proposal that all elementary schools should collect students’ mobiles in the morning and not return them until the end of the school day. The motivation is that mobile use interferes with the concentration and increases the risk of network violations.
But student unions and school magazines are based on the fact that the young people can communicate to organize themselves.
“The fact that students cannot use their mobile phones even during breaks means a practical obstacle to the exercise of the constitutionally protected freedom of association,” writes the lawyers Fredrik Engström and Peter Hellman at DN Debate.
They compare with an employer to seize trade union representatives’ mobiles during the work day, which would have been unthinkable. They also write that the Law Council already pointed out in 2007 that the collection of pupils’ mobiles entails a restriction on property protection under the European Convention.
“In practice, it is a matter of seizures, which in the rest of society is normally reserved for law enforcement authorities,” they write and urge the government to throw the proposal into the trash.